Screening and brief interventions for alcohol use in college health centers: a review.

OBJECTIVES: to provide a critical review of the efficacy of brief interventions for alcohol use in college health centers. METHODS: studies were included if (a) they examined brief intervention trials that were conducted in college- or university-based student health centers or emergency departments, and (b) they provided pre-post data to estimate change. RESULTS: twelve studies suggested that screening and brief interventions in these settings are acceptable, feasible, and promote risk reduction. CONCLUSIONS: findings support continued use of time-limited, single-session interventions with motivational interviewing and feedback components.

Economic grand rounds: Predictors of missed appointments over the course of child mental health treatment.

Although missed appointments in service delivery systems reduce effective case management, clinical efficiency, staff morale, and resource utilization, researchers have paid little attention to the impact of missed appointments on patient care. This column presents findings from a study that examined predictors of missed appointments during the course of therapy among 2,903 psychiatric patients between the ages of three and 17. Self-reported history of maternal depression proved to be the most powerful predictor. Living more than 30 miles from the clinic and having a parent who was single or never married also predicted missed appointments.

Recruiting African American smokers into intervention research: Relationships between recruitment strategies and participant characteristics.

The purposes of this study were to (a) to describe an 8-month recruitment campaign to enroll African American smokers (N = 249) into a randomized controlled trial and (b) examine characteristics of participants recruited through proactive (face-to-face), reactive (television, radio, or newspaper ads inviting participants), and combination (both reactive and proactive) approaches. Reactive recruitment was most successful (43%), followed by proactive (31%), and combination (26%) recruitment. Compared to proactive recruitment, reactive recruitment was associated with lower nicotine dependence, and greater readiness to quit, processes of change engagement, and acculturation. Combination recruitment was associated with lower nicotine dependence and greater readiness to quit. The differences according to recruitment strategy could be used to tailor recruitment strategies for African American smokers.

Attributions of behavior in the pediatric mild closed head injury (CHI) population.

Forty-one children between the ages of 6 and 11 years with a history of a mild closed head injury and 23 age-, gender-, and IQ-matched typically developing control children participated. All of the children in the CHI sample were referred for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan at 3 months post-injury and children in the CHI sample were further divided into MRI-Negative (n=31) and MRI-Positive (n=10) conditions according to the MRI results. Parents and teachers completed behavioral checklists at three points, including just prior to the MRI and 6 months post-injury. Prior to the MRI (Time 2), in both samples of children with a CHI, parents reported an increase in externalizing symptoms after the CHI. At 6 months post-injury (Time 3: post-MRI), parents of children in the MRI-Positive group did not report any significant changes in their child's externalizing behaviors when compared with pre-MRI, yet parents of children in the MRI-Negative group reported a further increase in externalizing behaviors. Parent attributions also changed as a function of group membership; whereas no changes were noted in the other two groups, parents of children in the MRI-Negative sample ascribed more controllability at Time 3 when compared with Time 2.