CTN-0021: Motivational Enhancement Treatment to Improve Treatment Engagement and Outcome for Spanish-Speaking Individuals Seeking Treatment for Substance Abuse

Kathleen Carroll, PhD
Co-Lead Investigator
Connecticut VA Healthcare Center
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University
kathleen.carroll@yale.edu

José Szapocznik, PhD
Co-Lead Investigator
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
University of Miami
jszapocz@med.miami.edu

This multisite randomized trial compared the effectiveness of three individual sessions of motivational enhancement therapy (MET) to three individual sessions of counseling as usual (CAU) on treatment retention and frequency of substance use, with all assessment and treatment sessions conducted in Spanish among 405 individuals seeking treatment for any type of current substance use.

Primary Findings

Both interventions resulted in reductions in substance use during the 4-week therapy phase, there were no significant treatment condition by time interactions nor site by treatment condition interactions. Results suggest that the individual treatments delivered in Spanish were both attractive to and effective with this heterogeneous group of Hispanic adults, but the differential effectiveness of MET may be limited to those whose primary substance use problem is alcohol and may be fairly modest in magnitude.

Primary Outcomes Article: Carroll KM, et al. A Multisite Randomized Effectiveness Trial of Motivational Enhancement Therapy for Spanish-Speaking Substance Users. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 2009;77(5):993-999. [get article]

    Node Involvement

    Lead Node(s):

  • Florida Node Alliance
  • New England Consortium Node

  • All Participating Nodes:

  • Florida Node Alliance
  • New England Consortium Node
  • New York Node
  • Rocky Mountain Regional Node
  • Western States Node