This article summarizes the 30+-year evidence base of Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT), a comprehensive treatment for youth substance abuse and antisocial behaviors. Findings from four types of MDFT studies are discussed: hybrid efficacy/effectiveness randomized controlled trials, therapy process studies, cost analyses, and implementation trials. This research has evaluated various versions of MDFT. These studies have systematically tested adaptations of MDFT for diverse treatment settings in different care sectors (mental health, substance abuse, juvenile justice, and child welfare), as well as adaptations according to treatment delivery features and client impairment level, including adolescents presenting with multiple psychiatric diagnoses. Many published scientific reviews, including meta-analyses, national and international government publications, and evidence-based treatment registries, offer consistent conclusions about the clinical effectiveness of MDFT compared with standard services as well as active treatments. The diverse and continuing MDFT research, the favorable, multi-source independent evaluations, combined with the documented receptivity of youth, parents, community-based clinicians and administrators, and national and international MDFT training programs (U.S.-based organization is MDFT International, www.mdft.org; and Europe-based organization is www.mdft.nl) all support the potential for continued transfer of MDFT to real-world clinical settings.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 October 2025.
All research outputs
#8,961,086
of 29,973,289 outputs
Outputs from Family Process
#509
of 1,218 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#101,032
of 316,997 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Family Process
#8
of 15 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 29,973,289 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 68th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,218 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.6. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 57% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 316,997 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 15 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 46th percentile – i.e., 46% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
