The Effects of Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) on parent substance use and the association between parent substance use and adolescent substance use.

Parent substance use has significant effects on adolescent substance use. Dysfunctional family structure and inadequate parenting practices, resulting from parent substance use, are strongly associated with adolescent substance use. This poster reports on an ancillary investigation of CTN-0014 that sought to determine the effects of Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) on parent substance use; to determine the impact of parent substance use on adolescent substance use; and to examine the mediating effects of family functioning on the relationship between parent substance use and adolescent substance use. Generalized estimated equations revealed that parents in BSFT significantly decreased their alcohol score from baseline to 12 months at a rate of 0.74. Wilcoxon analyses revealed that children of parents who reported substance use at baseline had twice as many days of reported drug use at baseline compared with children of parents who did not use or only used alcohol. Mixed model longitudinal analyses showed that adolescents in BSFT had a significantly lower trajectory of substance use than those in TAU if their parents used substances at baseline. Mediation analyses indicated a statistically significant effect, evidence that change in family functioning significantly predicts parent alcohol use.

Conclusions: BSFT appears to be effective in reducing alcohol use in parents, and in reducing an adolescent’s substance use if their parents were also using at baseline.

Related protocols: CTN-0014