The Psychostimulant Check-Up: A pilot study of a brief intervention to reduce illicit stimulant use MATTHEW F. SMOUT 1 , MARIE LONGO 1 , SONIA HARRISON 1 , RINALDO MINNITI 1 , SHARON CAHILL 1 , WENDY WICKES 1 and JASON M. WHITE 1,2 1 Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia, Norwood, Australia, and 2 University of Adelaide, Discipline of Pharmacology, Adelaide, Australia Abstract Introduction and Aims. This study is to test the acceptability of a single-session ‘check-up’ intervention for psychostimulant users and document participants’ subsequent progress in reducing psychostimulant use and related harms. Design and Methods. The design was pre-experimental single-group repeated measures. Eighty participants received the Psychostimulant Check-Up, with 62% completing a 3 month follow up. Results. Participants were predominantly young adult methamphet- amine users.The majority indicated that the Check-Up answered their questions, increased their awareness of services, and they would recommend it to their friends. At follow up, there was a significant reduction in self-reported methamphetamine use, the number of self-reported psychostimulant-related negative consequences experienced in the previous month and rates of injecting: 62% self-reported at least a 1 g reduction in methamphetamine use. Discussion and Conclusions. The intervention was well accepted and the majority of those who received it subsequently made meaningful reductions in psychostimulant use and related harm.The intervention offers sufficient promise to warrant a randomised trial to establish whether improvements were specific to the intervention. [Smout MF, Longo M, Harrison S, Minniti R, Cahill S, Wickes W, White JM. The Psychostimulant Check-Up: A pilot study of a brief intervention to reduce illicit stimulant use. Drug Alcohol Rev 2010;29;169–176] Key words: brief intervention, methamphetamine, Check-Up. Introduction Psychostimulant use is associated with increased risk of harms, such as psychosis [1], cognitive problems [2], physical health problems [3,4], violence [5] and depen- dence [6]. Consequently, the majority of empirically supported treatment programs developed for cocaine and methamphetamine users have been multimodal, multi-session, time-, cost- and labour-intensive [7–12]. Such intensive programs may be necessary for some proportion of psychostimulant users to achieve absti- nence, but they have high drop-out rates that range from 37% [13] to 72% [14]. However, Baker and col- leagues [15] have demonstrated that as little as two to four sessions of cognitive behaviour therapy is sufficient to improve on 6 month follow up abstinence rates achieved by self-help alone, indicating that many psy- chostimulant users may not require long episodes of treatment. Psychostimulant users are a population renowned for low participation in treatment. Only around 10% of regular methamphetamine users seek treatment [16], and rates are even lower for MDMA users [17]. His- torically, methamphetamine users have perceived spe- cialist drug treatment services to be not relevant to their needs [18,19], nor to see value in attending, even if experiencing difficulties [20]. It seems likely that low commitment to lengthy treatment programs could act as a barrier to treatment-seeking for many psycho- stimulant users. Notwithstanding the evidence of supe- rior long-term outcomes for drug users with greater long-term treatment involvement, it may be that Matthew F. Smout PhD, MPsych (Clin), BSc (Hons), Senior Clinical Psychologist, Marie Longo PhD, BA (Hons), Senior Research Officer, Sonia Harrison MPsych (Clin), BA, Clinical Psychologist, Rinaldo Minniti MPsych (Clin), Senior Clinical Psychologist, Sharon Cahill RN, Grad Dip Counselling, Clinical Nurse,Wendy Wickes MBBS, FAChAM, BSc (Hons), Senior Medical Officer, Jason M White PhD, BSc (Hons), Professor, Head of Discipline. Correspondence to Dr Matthew Smout, Centre for Treatment of Anxiety and Depression, 30 Anderson St, Thebarton SA 5031, Australia. Tel: +61 417840 892; Fax: +61 88222 8101; E-mail: matthew.smout@health.sa.gov.au Received 8 January 2009; accepted for publication 24 May 2009. Drug and Alcohol Review (March 2010), 29, 169–176 DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-3362.2009.00133.x © 2009 Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs