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Exploring the Factor Structure of a Recovery Assessment Measure among Substance-Abusing Youth.

ABSTRACT: To date, the measurement of recovery in the field of substance abuse is limited. Youth recovery from substance abuse is an important area to consider, given the complexities of such issues. The Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS) has been validated with mental health patient populations; however, its measurement characteristics have not been examined for individuals in substance abuse treatment. The current study explored the factor structure of the RAS with a sample of 80 substance-abusing youth who participated in a pilot aftercare study (Mage 20.5, SD=3.5; 71.3% male). Reliability analysis showed an internal consistency of ?=.90 for the entire RAS measure among the youth sample. Results of exploratory factor analysis identified the following four factors: personal determination, skills for recovery, self-control in recovery, and social support/moving beyond recovery among the substance-abusing youth sample. The RAS also demonstrated sound convergent and divergent validity in comparison to other validated measures of functioning, sobriety, and well-being. Collectively, results support that the RAS has adequate psychometric properties for measuring recovery among substance-abusing youth.

SUBMITTER: Gonzales R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4732567 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Exploring the Factor Structure of a Recovery Assessment Measure among Substance-Abusing Youth.

Gonzales Rachel R Hernandez Mayra M Douglas Samantha B SB Yu Chong Ho CH

Journal of psychoactive drugs 20150702 3

To date, the measurement of recovery in the field of substance abuse is limited. Youth recovery from substance abuse is an important area to consider, given the complexities of such issues. The Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS) has been validated with mental health patient populations; however, its measurement characteristics have not been examined for individuals in substance abuse treatment. The current study explored the factor structure of the RAS with a sample of 80 substance-abusing youth wh ...[more]

PMID: 26134600

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Substance use by youth remains a significant public health concern. Social media provides the opportunity to discuss and display substance use-related beliefs and behaviors, suggesting that the act of posting drug-related content, or viewing posted content, may influence substance use in youth. This aligns with empirically supported theories, which posit that behavior is influenced by perceptions of normative behavior. Nevertheless, few studies have explored the content of posts by youth related to substance use. OBJECTIVE:This study aimed to identify the beliefs and behaviors of youth related to substance use by characterizing the content of youths' drug-related tweets. Using a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach, we sampled drug-relevant tweets and qualitatively examined their content. METHODS:We used natural language processing to determine the frequency of drug-related words in public tweets (from 2011 to 2015) among youth Twitter users geolocated to Pennsylvania. We limited our sample by age (13-24 years), yielding approximately 23 million tweets from 20,112 users. We developed a list of drug-related keywords and phrases and selected a random sample of tweets with the most commonly used keywords to identify themes (n=249). RESULTS:We identified two broad classes of emergent themes: functional themes and relational themes. Functional themes included posts that explicated a function of drugs in one's life, with subthemes indicative of pride, longing, coping, and reminiscing as they relate to drug use and effects. Relational themes emphasized a relational nature of substance use, capturing substance use as a part of social relationships, with subthemes indicative of drug-related identity and companionship. We also identified topical areas in tweets related to drug use, including reference to polysubstance use, pop culture, and antidrug content. Across the tweets, the themes of pride (63/249, 25.3%) and longing (39/249, 15.7%) were the most popular. Most tweets that expressed pride (46/63, 73%) were explicitly related to marijuana. Nearly half of the tweets on coping (17/36, 47%) were related to prescription drugs. Very few of the tweets contained antidrug content (9/249, 3.6%). CONCLUSIONS:Data integration indicates that drugs are typically discussed in a positive manner, with content largely reflective of functional and relational patterns of use. The dissemination of this information, coupled with the relative absence of antidrug content, may influence youth such that they perceive drug use as normative and justified. Strategies to address the underlying causes of drug use (eg, coping with stressors) and engage antidrug messaging on social media may reduce normative perceptions and associated behaviors among youth. The findings of this study warrant research to further examine the effects of this content on beliefs and behaviors and to identify ways to leverage social media to decrease substance use in this population.

Project description:IntroductionThere is a rise in problematic substance use among Canadian youth, which is precipitating a public health crisis. Interventions are needed to empower youth to mitigate substance use risks. Active youth involvement in substance use prevention is urgently needed to increase uptake and ownership of the process and outcome of the intervention. Arts-based interventions are ideal participatory action approaches that can empower young people to be active agents in substance use prevention. These approaches can help promote health, reduce harm, and change behaviours. Scoping reviews are a vital tool that can help the research team identify relevant interventions that can be adapted to a community.MethodsThis scoping review explores various arts-based substance use prevention interventions for youth. The scoping review used the iterative stages of Arksey and O'Malley to search Portal ERIC, Ovid MEDLINE, C.I.N.A.H.L., E.M.B.A.S.E., Web of Science, and A.P.A. PsycInfo and grey literature from Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction and websites suggested by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health. Inclusion criteria are a) articles utilizing arts-based intervention on substance use prevention; b) studies with a clearly defined intervention; c) intervention targeting the youth (age 12-17) and d) publications written in English. Thematic analysis was used to identify the main themes from the included articles.Results and discussionThemes identified in a thematic synthesis of these studies included a) the intent of the intervention; b) intervention characteristics; and c) the perceived effectiveness of interventions. Art-based interventions increased knowledge and changed attitudes and practices on substance use among youth. Making the interventions aesthetically appealing and engaging, active youth involvement in the development of the intervention and developing youth-centred interventions which attended to the realities they faced were central to the success of these interventions.

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Exploring the Factor Structure of a Recovery Assessment Measure among Substance-Abusing Youth.

Publications

Exploring the Factor Structure of a Recovery Assessment Measure among Substance-Abusing Youth.

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