Day-care treatment for multiple drug abusing adolescents: social factors linked with completing treatment

By identifying some of the social correlates linked with completing day-care drug abuse treatment, the present study has sought to broaden understanding of how drug rehabilitations are effected. As the findings have demonstrated, completing care is a result of a complex array of causes and their interaction. The disposition of the entering patient (i.e., their determination and other strengths) has a great bearing on treatment outcome. It is also a result of the patient's family, their motivations, resources and perseverance in enduring a long course of demanding therapeutic interventions. In addition, it is the product of meanings shared and transmitted between the patient's family and the treatment staff. Patients and their families project positive attitudes about the value of the therapeutic enterprise as well as a compliant demeanor. As staff recognize that patients and parents are acting cooperatively, then such perceptions tend to create self-fulfilling prophecies. The data has established that older adolescent patients are more likely to possess the motivational resources needed for program completion than younger patients. Apparently, self-referred patients are also more inclined to meet the demands of program requirements than those referred by the courts or other outside social agencies, although the differences fell short of the .05 level of statistical significance. Those completing the program are less likely to be diagnosed as depressed at intake. Parental characteristics comprise another group of variables that are related to treatment completion. Parents of higher occupational rank, who have had mental health care for themselves, and who are of Jewish ethnicity appear to possess useful strengths for meeting program challenges. The pattern of spouse mutuality in dealing with a child's needs as it exists preceding and during treatment seems to be another useful asset for successfully getting through this form of treatment. While parents with the above characteristics possess resources that help them to endure the rigors inherent in this form of care, these attributes help project positive images to professional staff about family and patient commitment to treatment. The results of the present study also suggest that certain familial structural arrangements either facilitate or impede program completion. Three particular types of family structures were linked with remaining in treatment longer or finishing: (1) children who were the only children in their families who were living at home; (2) children with siblings who had been in treatment at the program; and (3) children without older brothers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)