Recruitment and retention of adolescent women in drug treatment research.

Although randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are universally regarded as the standard for establishing treatment efficacy (Shapiro and Louis 1983), relatively few RCTs have been attempted in the field of outpatient drug abuse treatment. Of those that have been attempted, most have reported subject recruitment and retention to be among the most pervasive problems encountered. Considerable attention has been devoted to the issue of subject retention (Carroll et al. 1991; Howard et al. 1990, pp. 66-79; Gainey et al. 1993; Kleinman et al. 1990, pp. 24-38). However, relatively little is known of the specific problems associated with recruiting and retaining adolescents in drug treatment studies. Given that most drug abuse problems begin in adolescence (Kandel and Logan 1984; O’Malley et al. 1984), a better understanding is required of the needs of these potential clients and the methodological issues involved in recruiting and keeping them in drug treatment studies.