How important are counselor and client characteristics in determining overall client satisfaction with 12-step focused community counseling groups?

s / Drug and Alcohol Dependence 146 (2015) e202–e284 e217 Developmental heritability of internalizing symptoms and cigarette use co-occurrence Cristina B. Bares1, Kenneth S. Kendler3,2, Judy Silberg2 1 School of Social Work, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States 2 Department of Human Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States 3 Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States Aims: Previous research with adult twins has indicated that additive genetic factors contribute substantially to the association between adult internalizing symptoms and cigarette use. This study was conducted to examine how the contribution of genetic and shared environmental factors to the co-occurrence between internalizing symptoms and cigarette use among adolescent twins change during adolescence. Methods: Adolescent twin pairs (n=1258) came from the population-based Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development. Age-specific bivariate twinmodelingwas performed of the highest number of cigarettes smoked and a composite measure of anxious and depressive symptoms from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment. Saturated bivariate Cholesky models for two age groups (14to 15-, and 16to 17-year-olds) were compared to reduced models where additive genetic and shared environmental influenceswere systematically removed and the fit of the nested models compared using OpenMx. Results: Compared to the saturated bivariate Cholesky, including three sources of genetic variance, a model dropping shared environmental effects caused a reduction in model fit for both groups (x2(3, n=582) =10.73, p< .01; x2(3, n=676) = , p< .01). The best fitting models indicated that 40.9% (for 14 to 15-y-o) and 37.5% (for 16to 17-y-o) of the total variance was explained by shared environmental factors common to both cigarette use and internalizing symptoms. Conclusions: The co-occurrence between internalizing symptoms and cigarette use among a sample of adolescent twins appears to result from decreasing shared environmental factors that influence the risk to both traits. Financial support: Funding for Dr. Bares’ work comes from Dr. James Anthony’s R25 DA030310. Funding for the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development comes from the following NIH grant, MH-45268. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2014.09.057 How important are counselor and client characteristics in determining overall client satisfaction with 12-step focused community counseling groups? Rita Baroni1, Douglas Boyd1, Adam Christmann1, Emily Hutz1, Carolyn M. Carpenedo1, Adam C. Brooks1, Alexandre B. Laudet2, K.C. Kirby1,3 1 Treatment Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA, United States 2 National Development and Research Institutes, New York, NY, United States 3 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, United States Aims: Research indicates that client satisfaction at end of treatment is associated with successful treatment outcomes. The present study examines client satisfaction in community counseling groups and counselor and client characteristics associatedwith increased satisfaction. Methods: In a pre-intervention phase of a large, multi-phase, multi-site clinical trial, 80counselors completedabackground form and agreed to run five group sessions on 12-step facilitation (12SF) topics,withminimal trainingandcovering the content to thebest of their current knowledge and ability. 700 clients in the counselors’ groups also agreed toparticipate and completed abackground form prior to attending groups. After the fifth session, clients rated their satisfactionwith the 12SF groups on both general and 12SF specific items. Results: Binary logistic regression for general satisfaction showed that clients under judicial pressure to be in treatmentwere 46.3% less likely to be very satisfied (OR= .573, p= .003), whereas clients whose counselors had more years of experience were more likely to be very satisfied (OR=1.04, p= .007). For 12S specific satisfaction, clients under judicial pressure were 44.9% less likely to be very satisfied (OR= .551, p= .000) and clients who had counselors that identified as being in recovery were 80flmore likely to be very satisfied (OR=1.80, p= .037). Conclusions: These results suggest that certain client and counselor characteristics are associated with client satisfaction with group counseling, and thus could influence client outcome. Treatment providers may need to (1) develop different strategies to foster higher satisfaction among criminal justice populations, and (2) focus on providing additional training on 12SF to less experienced counselors or those not in recovery in order to increase satisfaction. Financial support: NIAAA R01 AA017867. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2014.09.058 Substance use and mental health consequences of childhood trauma: An epidemiological investigation Emma L. Barrett, Maree Teesson, Cath Chapman, Tim Slade, Natacha Carragher, Katherine Mills National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW,