title: Family therapy and reductions in treatment dropout in a residential therapeutic community for chemically dependent adolescents.
abstract: The study explores the effects of family therapy and staff training on dropping out of treatment for chemically dependent adolescents who are residents of a therapeutic community. A naturally occurring experiment in which one facility of a therapeutic community introduced a structural family systems approach into its treatment, while another facility did not, provided the opportunity for this study. It was found that involving the families of chemically dependent adolescents in family therapy made a significant difference in reducing the number of youth who dropped out of residential treatment.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D005196:Family Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010352:Patient Dropouts; D012114:Residential Treatment; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D013808:Therapeutic Community