Chapter 1: Description of the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS)

1. Description of the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS)

Introduction

This report presents results from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) for 1999, and trend data for 1994-1999. The report provides information on the demographic and substance abuse characteristics of the approximately 1.6 million annual admissions to treatment for abuse of alcohol and drugs in facilities that report to individual State administrative data systems. The Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), coordinates and manages collection of TEDS data from the States.

The TEDS system includes data on treatment admissions that are routinely collected by States to monitor their individual substance abuse treatment systems. Selected data items from the individual State data files are converted to a standardized format consistent across States. These standardized data constitute TEDS.

TEDS consists of both a Minimum Data Set collected by all States, and a Supplemental Data Set collected by some States. The Minimum Data Set consists of 19 items that include:

Demographic information

Primary, secondary, and tertiary substances and their route of administration, frequency of use, and age at first use

Source of referral to treatment

Number of prior treatment episodes

Service type, including planned use of methadone

The Supplemental Data Set includes 15 items that include psychiatric, social, and economic measures.

Definitions and classifications used in the Minimum and Supplemental Data Sets are detailed in Appendix A.

Because the goal of TEDS is to collect information on entire treatment episodes, SAMHSA is expanding its data collection efforts to include discharge data. These data, when linked to admission data, will enable analyses of questions that cannot be answered with admissions data alone.