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The negative association between religiosity (religious beliefs and church attendance) and the likelihood of substance use disorders is well established, but the mechanism(s) remain poorly understood. We investigated whether this association was mediated by social support or mental health status.We utilized cross-sectional data from the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (n = 36,370). We first used logistic regression to regress any alcohol use in the past year on sociodemographic and religiosity variables. Then, among individuals who drank in the past year, we regressed past year alcohol abuse/dependence on sociodemographic and religiosity variables. To investigate whether social support mediated the association between religiosity and alcohol use and alcohol abuse/dependence we repeated the above models, adding the social support variables. To the extent that these added predictors modified the magnitude of the effect of the religiosity variables, we interpreted social support as a possible mediator. We also formally tested for mediation using path analysis. We investigated the possible mediating role of mental health status analogously. Parallel sets of analyses were conducted for any drug use, and drug abuse/dependence among those using any drugs as the dependent variables.The addition of social support and mental health status variables to logistic regression models had little effect on the magnitude of the religiosity coefficients in any of the models. While some of the tests of mediation were significant in the path analyses, the results were not always in the expected direction, and the magnitude of the effects was small.The association between religiosity and decreased likelihood of a substance use disorder does not appear to be substantively mediated by either social support or mental health status.

Objective: To evaluate how adolescents with marijuana problems who received a research-based treatment (five sessions of motivational enhancement therapy plus cognitive behavioral therapy [MET/CBT5]) in an experimental setting would have fared had they received exemplary community-based outpatient treatment. Method: Twelve-month outcomes representing six domains (substance use problems, substance use frequency, emotional problems, illegal activities, recovery, and institutionalization) were assessed for youth who received MET/CBT5 in the Cannabis Youth Treatment study and youth who received outpatient treatment from one of three community-based programs selected for evidence of efficacy. Groups were matched on pretreatment characteristics using a propensity score weighting strategy. Results: Youth who received MET/CBT5 exhibited greater reductions in substance use frequency, substance use problems, and illegal behaviors 12 months after treatment entry than had they entered the community-based outpatient programs. Results showed no evidence that youth who received MET/CBT5 would have fared better with respect to emotional problems, the likelihood of being institutionalized, or achieving a 'recovery' status at 12 months had they received community-based treatments. Conclusions: The community-based treatments used in this study have not been assessed relative to 'treatment as usual' but were selected as 'exemplary' models of adolescent treatment. There is no evidence in this study that these exemplary programs yielded superior 12-month outcomes for the treatment of adolescents with marijuana problems; youth receiving MET/CBT5 experienced greater reductions in substance use and illegal activities. Thus, MET/CBT5 may be a promising treatment for community-based providers to adopt to treat these clients. (J Stud. Alcohol Drugs. 72, 380-389, 2011), ONE STRATEGY FOR ENSURING THAT adolescents with substance use problems receive high-quality treatment is to encourage community-based treatment programs to adopt treatment approaches that have demonstrated some degree of efficacy [...]

Research findings that the introduction of extensive formal home care benefits will result in the withdrawal of informal home care supports the concerns of policymakers. However, an examination of the researched data indicates that a lot depends on the wordings of the question and the approach of researchers. Since these results can play a crucial part in decisions about formal home care services, researchers should pay attention to the mechanics of the research.