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Services Research Outcomes Study (SROS)
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Services Research Outcomes Study (SROS) | ||||||||||||
COMPARISON OF SROS AND OTHER STUDIES
Research on the effectiveness of drug treatment has generally focused on samples of individuals from purposively selected, publicly funded facilities. Such studies include the following:
·510·Drug Abuse Reporting Program (DARP) (Sells and Simpson, 1974, 1979, 1981), which followed a cohort of 4,100 clients admitted to treatment during 1969–1972 with two interviews, including a 12-year followup of 700 opioid users who entered treatment from 1969 to 1972;·510
·510·Treatment Outcome Prospective Study (TOPS) (Hubbard et al., 1989), which followed 10,000 clients admitted to 41 drug treatment programs in 10 cities from 1979 to 1981; ·510
·510·Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Study (DATOS) (Hubbard et al., forthcoming), which followed a purposive sample of 10,000 clients admitted to 99 treatment facilities in 11 cities in the 1990s and interviewed about 3,000 clients one year after discharge from treatment; and·510
·510·National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES) (Gerstein et al., 1997), which followed 6,600 clients treated in a Federal demonstration program and analyzed outcome data for 4,400 clients.·510
DSRS and the California Drug and Alcohol Treatment Assessment (CALDATA) are unusual because they used a probability sample of facilities and individuals. In 1990, DSRS abstracted records for a random sample of 2,222 individuals discharged from drug treatment in the United States between September 1, 1989, and August 31, 1990. In 1992, CALDATA abstracted records for a random sample of 3,055 individuals discharged from drug treatment in California, interviewing 1,826 of them to compare their behavior one year before and one year after treatment.
SROS builds on both of these studies. The SROS sample of discharges includes 1,706 of the 2,222 DSRS discharges (77 percent) plus an additional 1,341 discharges randomly sampled from 32 of the larger facilities to make the SROS sample more nationally representative of clients discharged from treatment — the DSRS sample being based on 20 clients from every facility.
Table 2-4 compares the distribution of clients in SROS and three other significant surveys conducted around the same time period: the 1993–1994 NTIES; the 1991–1993 DATOS; and DSRS, which drew a stratified national probability sample of 120 programs and abstracted treatment records for clients discharged during 1989–1990.
Of these surveys, NTIES and DATOS are purposive surveys; DSRS and SROS are probability samples. The NTIES sample was selected within a framework of competitive award recipients seeking to innovate in their clinical activities; the DATOS sample was selected from standard, stable treatment facilities. DSRS and SROS were intended to represent the national population of facilities and clients.
The samples differ in a number of other respects as well. For example, about 25 percent of NTIES clients were in correctional settings, that were not included in any of the other sample frames. Five percent of SROS clients were in outpatient methadone versus 15 percent of DATOS clients and five percent of DSRS clients. Thirty-seven percent of SROS’ weighted national estimate of clients were discharged from hospital inpatient clinics, whereas only 16 percent of DSRS’ national estimate of clients were hospital inpatients; SROS estimates that 18 percent of national discharges were from residential treatment versus 26 percent projected by DSRS. These differences are likely due to the different classification methods of the two studies. DSRS classified clients according to the predominant modality of the facility as well as the client’s record at the facility while SROS used the client’s statement about modality. In addition, 26 percent of the DSRS national estimate was attributed to discharges from facilities with mixed modes (e.g., alcohol and others).
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This page was last updated on April 29, 2004.
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