Parent-child Communication and Health-risk Behavior

NCT02330666 | Completed DMC

• 1 other identifier: 2003-352
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 604
• Locations: 0 countries
• Sites: N/A

Brief Summary

Engaging in health-risk behaviors such as tobacco and alcohol use put youth at risk for health problems that may compromise their futures and are extremely costly to society. Positive parent-child communication, characterized by openness, satisfaction with the family, caring, and effective problem-solving, has been found to be protective against a youth's involvement in health-risk behaviors. To promote positive adult-youth communication, in earlier work we developed, tested, and found efficacious an intervention, Mission Possible: Parents and Kids Who Listen (MP). This study is designed to test the following hypotheses: (a) Adults and youth who participate in MP will demonstrate more positive communication when compared with adults who did not participate; (b) Youth who participate in MP will have a lower incidence of health-risk behavior when compared with youth who did not participate; and (c) Positive adult-youth communication will mediate childhood health-risk behavior in the presence of risk processes that predict participation. The experimental design is a 2-group (intervention and comparison) pre-test repeated measures design with six waves of data collection over three years and two booster sessions of the intervention. Elementary school and community centers in Madison and Chicago served as recruitment sites for parent-child dyads.

Conditions

Parent-Child Relations

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Youth Health Risk Behavior

  Measured with the 22-item Children's Health Risk Behavior Scale (CHRBS). This instrument, based on the conceptual categories of the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance Survey, assesses potential for unintentional and intentional injury or violence, tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual curiosity, and health practices.

  3 years

Secondary Outcomes (3)

• Openness of Communication

  3 years

• Family Satisfaction

  3 years

• Problem-Solving Skill

  3 years

Study Arms (2)

Comparison

NO INTERVENTION

Standard care

Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

Communication skills training Mission Possible: Parents \& Kids Who Listen

Behavioral: Mission Possible: Parents & Kids Who Listen

Interventions

Mission Possible: Parents & Kids Who Listen BEHAVIORAL

MP is a 12-hour, 6-session, manualized skills training program with 2 boosters. Behavioral strategies teach adults and youth to communicate with one another emphasizing youth's need for flexible family boundaries, emotional closeness, and adults as resources. Dyads attend together. Sessions begin with relaxation exercises, review of the prior week's lessons and homework, and examination of success and failure in trying communication techniques. New concepts are introduced using didactic videotaped presentations. Lively, interactive, developmentally appropriate group exercises follow reflective of ethnic diversity that are reinforced with handouts and encouragement to try them at home. Week-by-week content covers: Developmental Changes; Self-Esteem; Communicating What You Want; Listening to What the Other Wants; Solving Conflicts; and Letting Go. The booster sessions are 2 hours in length and update developmental concepts; 5 basic listening skills; and 6 conflict resolution steps.

Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 10 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Adults and youth must be English speakers
• Youth must be 10 years old

You may not qualify if:

• Severe mental or physical illness that could preclude involvement in data collection procedures
• Family plans to move from the metropolitan areas prior to study completion

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Wisconsin, Madison: lead
• Loyola University Chicago: collaborator
• Iowa State University: collaborator

Study Officials

• Susan K Riesch, PhD

  University of Wisconsin, Madison

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: December 30, 2014
• First Posted: January 5, 2015
• Study Start: August 1, 2004
• Primary Completion: February 1, 2010
• Study Completion: December 1, 2010
• Last Updated: October 2, 2015

Record last verified: 2015-09