Care pathways for young people who misuse substances: using the evidence to design services

To review a selection of the literature on the nature and contents of care pathways. We examine recent work on current trends in intervening to meet the needs of young people who misuse substances.

The recent and growing literature encourages us to adopt care pathways as structured models for service delivery. The increased prevalence and the severity and complexity of the problems experienced by young people who misuse substances evidence the requirement for specialist services for them.

The literature argues for using care pathways to manage better services for intervening with young people who use or misuse substances and recommends their contents. We conclude that care pathways should be based on strategic models of care; however, there remain areas of uncertainty, including those about the balance of services that should be delivered, adoption of prevention programmes, and development of audit tools to monitor the impacts and effectiveness of care pathways. This review provides our recommended list of contents for models of care on which we recommend that associated care pathways should be based.