Explore a collection of resources below that have been especially selected and compiled to meet the needs of healthcare providers new to treating patients with addiction. The collection includes resources on: Neurobiology of Addiction; Screening and Assessment; Diagnosis and Treatment Planning; and Motivational Interviewing. The resources are meant to be a general guide on addiction-related topics.

Neurobiology of Addiction

• Neuroscience of Psychoactive Substance Use and Dependence (Report, 264 pages) World Health Organization. A comprehensive overview of the biological factors related to substance use and dependence summarizing important findings from the past 20-30 years.
• Neurobiology of Addiction: A Reward Deficit, Stress Surfeit and Executive Function Disorder (Video: 49 min, 22 sec) Alberta Family Wellness Initiative.  This presentation was delivered as part of the Recovery from Addiction (RFA) symposium, held in October 2012. Dr. Koob explains drug addiction as a complex disorder comprised of elements of impulse control and compulsive disorders.

Screening & Assessment

• Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) World Health Organization. A simple 10-question instrument to screen and identify people at risk of alcohol problems. 
• AUDIT-C World Health Organization. A 3-item modified version of the AUDIT used to identify patients who are hazardous drinkers or have active alcohol use disorders.
• CRAFFT Screening Tool  Boston Children’s Hospital. A 6-question behavioral health screening tool to screen adolescents for high risk alcohol and other drug use disorders simultaneously. Recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Substance Abuse for use with adolescents under the age of 21.
• NIDA Modified ASSIST Drug Use Screening Tool National Institute on Drug Abuse. A short screening tool to assess a patient's risk level based on a Substance Involvement (SI) score. 
• Online Screening Tool: Alcohol Screening Join Together (a project of The Partnership at DrugFree.org and Boston University School of Public Health). A short, confidential online screening tool which helps individuals assess their own alcohol consumption patterns to determine if their drinking is likely to be harming their health or increasing their risk for future harm.
• Online Assessment Measures: Cross-Cutting Symptom Measures  American Psychiatric Association (APA). Level 2- Substance Use- Adult; Adapted from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Modified ASSIST. 
• SBIRT Clinical Tools Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. Three SBIRT tools for primary care available for download: Readiness Ruler, Reference Sheet and Billing Reference Card.
• SBIRT Primary Care (Website) Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. A site with video demonstrations of SBIRT, practice management tools and clinic workflow. 
• Brief Intervention for Problem Drug Use in Safety-Net Primary Care Settings - A Randomized Clinical Trial (Article) The Journal of the American Medical Association. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a brief intervention using motivational interviewing would reduce problem drug use in safety-net primary care patients and increase admission to specialist substance abuse treatment compared with enhanced care as usual.
• Screening and Brief Intervention for Drug Use in Primary Care - The ASPIRE Randomized Clinical Trial (Article) The Journal of the American Medical Association. The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of 2 brief counseling interventions for unhealthy drug use (any illicit drug use or prescription drug misuse)—a brief negotiated interview (BNI) and an adaptation of motivational interviewing (MOTIV)—compared with no brief intervention.
• The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT): Guidelines for Use in Primary Care (Manual, 41 pages, WHO 2001 2nd Edition) World Health Organization, Department of Mental Health and Substance Dependence. The AUDIT was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a simple method of screening for excessive drinking and to assist in brief assessment. 
• Validity of the CRAFFT Substance Abuse Screening Test Among Adolescent Clinic Patients (Article, JAMA Pediatrics 2002, Vol 156, No. 6) John R. Knight, MD; Lon Sherritt, MPH; Lydia A. Shrier, MD, MPH; Sion Kim Harris, PhD; Grace Chang, MD, MPH. A criterion standard validation study to determine the accuracy of the CRAFFT in screening adolescents for substance-related problems and disorders.
• A Single-Question Screening Test for Drug Use in Primary Care (Article, JAMA Internal medicine 2010, Vol 170, No. 13) Peter C. Smith, MD, MSc; Susan M. Schmidt, BA; Donald Allensworth-Davies, MSc; Richard Saitz, MD, MPH. A study to determine the accuracy of using a single screening question to identify drug use in primary care patients. 
• Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention for Youth: A Practitioner's Guide(Manual, 47 pages) National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). A simple, quick, empirically derived tool for identifying youth ages 9-18 year at risk for alcohol-related problems. Produced in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Diagnosis & Treatment Planning

• MAT Advocacy Center (Advocacy Toolkit) Legal Action Center. Guidelines and helpful documents for Medication-Assisted Treatment for patients.
• Benzodiazepines: How they work and how to withdraw, aka "The Ashton Manual" (Article) Newcastle University, The Institute of Neuroscience. A patient- and provider-centered resource to understand and taper benzodiazepines. This multi-chapter manual walks one through step-by-step for decreasing the use of benzodiazepines.
• Prescribe to Prevent (Website) Prescribe to Prevent. Information for prescribing and dispensing naloxone rescue kits.