Assessing change in psychosocial functioning of incarcerated girls with a substance use disorder: Gender sensitive substance abuse intervention

The objective of this preliminary study was to determine the effectiveness of a female gender-specific substance abuse treatment intervention (Holistic Enrichment for At-Risk Teens, or HEART) in improving problems related to personal and social functioning. A quasi-experimental, 2-group pretest and posttest repeated measures design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment intervention with 101 incarcerated girls who met DSM-IV criteria for substance dependence. A repeated measures MANCOVA revealed that the HEART program appeared to be more effective in reducing problems related to social functioning than the standard treatment substance abuse intervention. At posttest, significant differences were found between the treatment and comparison groups on three of the four measures of social functioning: problems with family, problems with friends, and problems with school. No significant differences were found between the 2 groups on 3 posttest measures of personal functioning. A critical need exists for gender-sensitive substance abuse interventions in female juvenile correctional facilities. Implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.