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Abstract #149159

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Alexandra Duncan, MPH¹, Stanley Sacks, PhD², and Gerald Melnick, PhD¹. (1) Center for the Integration of Research and Practice, National Development & Research Institutes, 71 W. 23rd Street, 8th floor, New York, NY 10010, 212.845.4471, Duncan@ndri.org, (2) Center for the Integration of Research &Practice, National Development & Research Institute, 71 West 23rd Street, 8th Fl., New York, NY 10010

Understanding the presence of co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (COD) is essential to improve the effectiveness offender treatment programs. The Criminal Justice Co-Occurring Disorders Screening Instrument (CJ-CODSI) is designed to develop a brief, validated COD screening instrument for criminal justice system use. The investigative team constructed a screening battery composed of the Mental Health Screening Form III (Carroll & McGinley, 2001); the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs Short Screener (Dennis, 1998); and the MINI-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (Sheehan et al., 1998). The criterion measure was the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Preliminary analysis (validated sample n=223) indicates that six items drawn from these instruments are highly effective in screening for the presence of mental disorder among inmates in substance abuse treatment programs (overall accuracy 72.6%; sensitivity 78.8%, specificity 47.7%). The minority supplement to CJ-CODSI is designed to examine the effectiveness of the CJ-CODSI screening battery for mental disorders among minority offenders in prison-based substance abuse treatment. Preliminary data of African-Americans (n=55) and Latinos (n=105), in the parent study, will be compared to the larger sample of non-ethnic minority offenders in the same age group (n=143). In addition, the investigator will discuss the design and methodology employed in gathering data from a larger sample (n=100) of minority offenders. This study has the potential to determine if the promising results on the utility of the CJ-CODSI for screening are applicable to minority offenders, or what modifications are needed, and thereby create a screening instrument that can be used with this group.

Learning Objectives:

• 1)To describe the benefits of a shortened screener for co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders for criminal justice system use.
• 2)To discuss the process of developing a short screening for criminal justice system use.
• 3)To evaluate the effectiveness of the CJ-CODSI screening battery among African American, Latino, and white offenders.

Keywords: Criminal Justice, Mental Illness

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

• Slides (pdf) or Handout