# Does Treating Young Persons Psychopathology Prevent the Onset of Opioid and other Substance Use Disorders?

> **NIH NIH UH3** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2020 · $3,008,907

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Opioid use disorders (OUD) are among the most severe and deadly substance use disorders (SUD) in young
people. Psychiatric disorders pose one of the major risks to develop opioid and other SUDs. For instance,
young people with psychopathology are at two to three-fold increased risk to develop nicotine, alcohol, opioid
and drug use disorders. Reciprocally, very high rates of psychopathology have been reported in samples of
young people with OUD and other SUDs. This is particularly important since up to three-quarters of psychiatric
and SUDs onset in childhood or young adulthood. Despite psychopathology robustly increasing the risk for
later substance related disorders, remarkably little has been completed examining the impact of treating
psychopathology on reducing rates of OUD, nicotine and other SUDs. Given the common prevalence of
juvenile psychopathology, and the high morbidity and mortality associated with OUD and other SUDs,
identification of substance use and psychopathology as well as elucidating the longer-term impacts, and
intervening relationships, of treatment of psychopathology on OUD, nicotine and other SUDs in behavioral
health and substance use settings in young people is of the highest clinical and public health utility.
The main aims of this study are to implement a pragmatic set of office-based instrumentation using patient
related outcome measures linked to electronic health records (EPIC) for intake and follow-up assessments to
evaluate psychopathology, OUD, nicotine and other SUDs-as well as the cost-effectiveness of these
interventions. We plan to study young people aged 16-30 years old who are receiving treatment naturalistically
as part of their routine clinical care in behavioral health outpatient settings. We aim to compare those with
higher- relative to lower-treatment exposure for up to 3.5 years to examine the effects of pharmacotherapy,
psychosocial treatments, and their combination on the later development of OUD, nicotine and other SUDs in
young people. Using identical methodology, in outpatient SUD treatment settings, we also plan to examine
similar age patients with non-opioid SUD to examine the impact of treatment in mitigating the development of
OUD. We also aim to examine important mediators and moderators of psychosocial factors and treatment
response on later OUD, nicotine and other SUDs. Data derived from this study will help inform clinical
guidelines, public health policy, and provide important secondary outcomes for further work on the prevention
of OUD, nicotine and SUD in relation to early-onset psychopathology.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10208059
- **Project number:** 4UH3DA050252-02
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Timothy E Wilens
- **Activity code:** UH3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $3,008,907
- **Award type:** 4N
- **Project period:** 2019-09-30 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10208059

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10208059, Does Treating Young Persons Psychopathology Prevent the Onset of Opioid and other Substance Use Disorders? (4UH3DA050252-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10208059. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*