Presents information on identifying, screening, and assessing adolescents who use substances. This report focuses on the most current procedures and instruments for detecting substance abuse among adolescents, conducting comprehensive assessments, and beginning treatment planning. Presents appropriate strategies and guidelines for screening and assessment. Explains legal issues concerning Federal and State confidentiality laws. Provides guidance for screening and assessing adolescents in juvenile justice settings. Summarizes instruments to screen and assess adolescents for substance and general functioning domains.

Drug Utilization Research (DUR) is an eclectic scientific discipline, integrating descriptive and analytical methods for the quantification, understanding and evaluation of the processes of prescribing, dispensing and consumption of medicines and for the testing of interventions to enhance the quality of these processes. The discipline is closely related and linked mainly to the broader field of pharmacoepidemiology, but also to health outcomes research, pharmacovigilance and health economics. Drug Utilization Research is a unique, practical guide to the assessment and evaluation of prescribing practices and to interventions to improve the use of medicines in populations. Edited by an international expert team from the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE), DUR is the only title to cover both the methodology and applications of drug utilization research and covers areas such as health policy, specific populations, therapeutics and adherence.

Drug abuse persists as one of the most costly and contentious problems on the nation's agenda. Pathways of Addiction meets the need for a clear and thoughtful national research agenda that will yield the greatest benefit from today's limited resources. The committee makes its recommendations within the public health framework and incorporates diverse fields of inquiry and a range of policy positions. It examines both the demand and supply aspects of drug abuse. Pathways of Addiction offers a fact-filled, highly readable examination of drug abuse issues in the United States, describing findings and outlining research needs in the areas of behavioral and neurobiological foundations of drug abuse. The book covers the epidemiology and etiology of drug abuse and discusses several of its most troubling health and social consequences, including HIV, violence, and harm to children. Pathways of Addiction looks at the efficacy of different prevention interventions and the many advances that have been made in treatment research in the past 20 years. The book also examines drug treatment in the criminal justice setting and the effectiveness of drug treatment under managed care. The committee advocates systematic study of the laws by which the nation attempts to control drug use and identifies the research questions most germane to public policy. Pathways of Addiction provides a strategic outline for wise investment of the nation's research resources in drug abuse. This comprehensive and accessible volume will have widespread relevanceâ€"to policymakers, researchers, research administrators, foundation decisionmakers, healthcare professionals, faculty and students, and concerned individuals.