National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES), 1992-1997

The National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES)
is a congressionally-mandated five-year study of the impact of drug
and alcohol treatment on thousands of clients in hundreds of treatment
units that received public support from the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse
Treatment (CSAT). NTIES inquired about the allocation of grant money
to treatment programs, to investigate what improvements were made with
these monies and how many and what type of clients were affected by
the grant awards. The NTIES project collected longitudinal data on a
purposive sample of clients in treatment programs receiving CSAT
demonstration grant funding. Client-level data were obtained at
treatment intake, at treatment exit, and 12 months after treatment
exit. Service delivery unit (SDU) administrative and clinician (SDU
staff) data were obtained at two time points, one year apart. Data
were collected across several important outcome areas, including drug
and alcohol use, physical and mental health, criminal activity, social
functioning, and employment. For a random sample of approximately half
of those interviewed, urine specimens were collected at follow-up to
corroborate clients' self-reports of substance abuse, in addition to
arrest records to validate self-reports. Substances covered in the
study included alcohol, analgesics, antianxiety medications,
anticonvulsants, antidepressants, antimanics, barbiturates, cocaine
(powder and crack), depressants, hallucinogens/psychedelics, heroin
and other opiates, illegal methadone, inhalants, marijuana/hashish,
methadone, methamphetamine/amphetamine and other stimulants,
narcotics, and sedatives.