Characteristics of Adolescents Who Reported Receiving Mental Health and/or Alcohol or Drug Abuse Treatment

Introduction. While there has been an increasing emphasis on either the coordination or integration of alcohol or drug (AOD) abuse and mental health services, there is limited empirical evidence to guide this debate beyond the prevalence of co-occurring mental health and AOD problems. The purpose of this study is to compare the characteristics of adolescents who reported receiving only AOD treatment, only mental health treatment or both AOD and mental health treatment during a one-year period. Methods. This is a secondary analysis of data from the 2000 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The analysis was limited to youth between the ages of 12 and 17 who reported receiving AOD and/or mental health treatment, yielding a sample size of 2,868 respondents. Results. Seventy-five percent (n=1,784) of the youth reporting mental health treatment and 59.90% (n=115) of youth reporting AOD treatment scored positive on a mental health screening instrument. Besides gender, there were few demographic differences in the characteristics of youth who reported either mental health or AOD treatment. Rates of drug dependency were similar between the groups in respect to those drugs least commonly abused by adolescents. Youth who reported receiving AOD treatment were significantly more likely to engage in delinquent behavior and to have conduct disorder. Conclusions. These findings identify differences in youth who received mental health or AOD treatment which are clinically-relevant and may inform the debate regarding whether mental health and AOD services should be coordinated or integrated.