We ask authors to describe their impressions regarding the implications of their accepted work, how their findings will change practice, and what is noteworthy about the work.

Implementing Adolescent Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Education in a Pediatric Residency Curriculum
Patricia Schram , Sion K. Harris , Shari Van Hook , Sara Forman , Enrico Mezzacappa , Roman Pavlyuk , Sharon Levy
Substance Abuse
Vol. 36, Iss. 3, 2015

This manuscript describes implementation of an adolescent SBIRT curriculum into pediatric and child psychiatry residency programs.  We found that use of a highly structured algorithm to guide practice and simple, highly structured brief interventions appears to be a successful training approach as residents and preceptors consistently documented accurate use of the SBIRT algorithm immediately after the training.  Future research could determine whether web-based tutorials are as effective as in-person instruction and which methods are most effective for sustaining SBIRT practices.

We ask authors to describe their impressions regarding the implications of their accepted work, how their findings will change practice, and what is noteworthy about the work.

Synthetic Cannabinoids: Use and Predictors in a Community Sample of Young Adults
Celeste M. Caviness , Golfo Tzilos , Bradley J. Anderson , Michael D. Stein
Substance Abuse
Vol. 36, Iss. 3, 2015

In this large community sample of young adults, synthetic cannabinoids (SC) use was as common as opioid or cocaine use, and overlapped with binge drinking, cigarettes, and particularly marijuana use. As a marker of polysubstance abuse, clinicians should ask young adults, particularly men and those not in school, about synthetic cannabanoids.

We ask authors to describe their impressions regarding the implications of their accepted work, how their findings will change practice, and what is noteworthy about the work.

Vida PURA: A Cultural Adaptation of Screening and Brief Intervention to Reduce Unhealthy Drinking Among Latino Day Laborers
India J. Ornelas , Claire Allen , Catalina Vaughan , Emily C. Williams , Nalini Negi
Substance Abuse
Vol. 36, Iss. 3, 2015

Brief intervention is known to reduce drinking in primary care, however because health care access is limited for Latino immigrants, traditional brief interventions are unlikely to reach this population. Our findings suggested there is a significant need for interventions to address unhealthy alcohol use among Latino day laborers, as well as ways in which brief intervention could be culturally adapted to be more effective in this population.

We ask authors to describe their impressions regarding the implications of their accepted work, how their findings will change practice, and what is noteworthy about the work.

Addressing Adolescent Substance Use: Teaching Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) and Motivational Interviewing (MI) to Residents
Amy E. Whittle , Sara M. Buckelew , Jason M. Satterfield , Paula J. Lum , Patricia O’Sullivan
Substance Abuse
Vol. 36, Iss. 3, 2015

This paper describes a blended curriculum to teach SBIRT to medical trainees seeing adolescent patients. The authors suggest the use of self-reflection worksheets to help boost trainee skillfulness in motivational interviewing (MI); given the logistic difficulties of observing trainees with patients or of using standardized patients, this approach could offer an efficient way to reinforce principles of MI.

We ask authors to describe their impressions regarding the implications of their accepted work, how their findings will change practice, and what is noteworthy about the work.

Components of Brief Alcohol Interventions for Youth in the Emergency Department
Maureen A. Walton , Stephen T. Chermack , Frederic C. Blow , Peter F. Ehrlich , Kristen L. Barry , Brenda M. Booth , Rebecca M. Cunningham
Substance Abuse
Vol. 36, Iss. 3, 2015

Underage drinking remains an important public health problem, with early intervention strategies being critically important to alter risk trajectories. Although prior studies show brief interventions are promising, little is known about the salience of specific intervention components. By capturing data occurring during brief interventions, including those delivered by therapists and by computers, our findings provide novel information regarding potential key components. Namely our findings suggest that, regardless of delivery mechanism, brief interventions should include identification of personal strengths and protective behavioral strategies. Given the limitation that our outcome data was measured at post-test, future longitudinal studies are needed to determine the impact of these key components on drinking behaviors. The use of computer technology to deliver brief interventions, as well as structure the delivery of therapist interventions, provides an exciting platform to translate these approaches into routine medical care.