Transporting clinical research to community settings: Designing and conducting a multisite trial of Brief Strategic Family Therapy.

This article describes the development and implementation of a trial of Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) in eight community substance abuse treatment programs in the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN). BSFT is an evidence-based drug intervention for adolescents that addresses family relationships associated with adolescent drug use. It has been shown to be efficacious in reducing adolescent drug use and conduct problems and in improving family functioning overall.

The CTN protocol, protocol CTN-0014, compared BSFT to adolescent outpatient treatment as usual. Researchers and treatment programs collaborated closely to identify and overcome challenges, many of them related to achieving results that were both scientifically rigorous and applicable to the widest possible variety of adolescent substance abuse treatment programs. To meet these challenges, the collaborative team drew on lessons and practices from efficacy, effectiveness, and implementation research. The strategies described in this paper are particularly relevant for furthering implementation research focused on family-based treatments of adolescents.

Related protocols: CTN-0014