Inpatient Treatment of Adolescents With Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Disorders

No single therapeutic intervention has been proven to be superior to others in the inpatient treatment of adolescents with concomitant substance abuse and mental illness. In matching patients with treatment approaches, a cluster of interventions may be tried. Each patient's threshold of readiness to change may be sought by adjusting the treatment dosage, a dynamic qualitative and quantitative concept that includes frequency of treatment elements, length of treatment, and type and quality of interventions as well as identification of the most appropriate person on the treatment team to administer the interventions (7). This conceptual framework may serve as a basis for developing flexible yet effective programs for inpatient treatment of adolescents with concomitant mental illness and substance abuse disorder and for designing research to identify other innovative ways to address the needs of this population.