Supervision in Substance Use Disorder Treatment Programs

NCT07262372 | Recruiting

• 2 other identifiers: 297361R34DA060419
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 43
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Substance use disorders such as opioid addiction affect millions of adults in the United States each year, but the delivery of high-quality, effective addiction services is disrupted by organizational issues such as counselor burnout and turnover. Clinical supervisors are essential for supporting counselors in specialty addiction treatment programs, but few supervisors receive supervision-focused training. This project seeks to develop and pilot an evidence-based supervision strategy that has a high potential to enhance supervision and result in improved counselors' well-being and performance and, in turn, to improve client outcomes.

Conditions

Self Efficacy; Burnout, Professional; Substance Use Disorders; Supervision

Keywords

supervision; substance use disorder treatment facility; organizational context; counselor burnout; counselor self-efficacy

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Counselor self-efficacy

  Self-reported survey response at the counselor level (Efficacy subscale on TCU ORC; 1-5 Likert scale, higher scores are better; Lehman WEK, Greener JM, Simpson DD. Assessing organizational readiness for change. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2002;22(4):197-209. doi: 10.1016/S0740-5472(02)00233-7.)

  Every 6 months for 2 years

Secondary Outcomes (12)

• Supervisor fidelity to FOCUS

  Monthly, 2 years

• FOCUS acceptability

  Every 6 months, for 2 years

• FOCUS feasibility

  Every 6 months, for 2 years

• Leadership - implementation leadership

  Every 6 months, for 2 years

• Leadership - clinical supervision

  Every 6 months, for 2 years

Study Arms (1)

Supervision arm

EXPERIMENTAL

Supervisors will be trained and coached in a new supervision strategy (FOCUS)

Other: FOCUS supervision strategy

Interventions

FOCUS supervision strategy OTHER

The FOCUS supervision strategy provides a strenghts-based model for supervision. It is built around three core components: (1) Five pillars for effective supervision interactions, (2) practical skills that operationalize these principles, and (3) a set of experiential activities that provide foundational learnings for staff to practice the skills around real-life situations (from which future client-specific interventions can be built). In this study, FOCUS is being tailored for SUD treatment settings.

Supervision arm

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Serves as a supervisor (i.e., oversee work of counselors) or counselor (i.e., directly work with clients) at a substance use treatment facility/program
• Program/facility provides residential services

You may not qualify if:

• Supervisors contracted (not employed) by the facility

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Arkansas: lead
• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): collaborator
• Chestnut Health Systems: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Little Rock, Arkansas, 72205, United States

RECRUITING

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Burnout, Professional; Substance-Related Disorders

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Occupational Stress; Occupational Diseases; Burnout, Psychological; Stress, Psychological; Behavioral Symptoms; Behavior; Chemically-Induced Disorders; Mental Disorders

Central Study Contacts

Jure Baloh, PhD

CONTACT

501 526 6604; jbaloh@uams.edu

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: One arm pilot/feasibility study

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 12, 2025
• First Posted: December 3, 2025
• Study Start: July 21, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): May 31, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): June 30, 2027
• Last Updated: December 11, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-12

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: Estimated in 2027 (at study conclusion and submission of manuscripts); We will archive our data in NAHDAP (https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/NAHDAP/) following the Restricted-Use Data Deposit and Dissemination Procedures.
• Access Criteria: We will archive our data in NAHDAP following Restricted-Use Data Deposit and Dissemination Procedures.

Locations

US (1)