Feasibility Study of a Web-based Program to Help Parents of Middle School Students Effectively Communicate With Their Children About Substance Use

Innovation Research & Training

Status: Completed

Conditions: Parenting; Substance Use; Communication

Treatments: Behavioral: Media Ready Parent; Behavioral: Active Control Program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT05900115

MiddleYearsStudyR21-23-003-001

5R21DA052737-02 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this study is to test the feasibility of a web-based program for parents of middle school aged students. 286 parents and their child in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade will be asked to each complete two online questionnaires over the course of about a month, parents will also complete a web-based program between questionnaires. Researchers will compare the intervention and an active control to test the intervention program efficacy for improving outcomes related to parent-child communication, media message processing, and adolescent health.

Full description

The purpose of this study is to evaluate and assess a self-administered, web-based program designed to increase parent knowledge about adolescent substance use, active media mediation skills, and practice high-quality parent-adolescent communication methods. The program will help parents of middle-school aged students, 6th-8th graders, communicate effectively about substance use and enhance media literacy skills to counter unhealthy media messages. Prevention efforts are most impacting for adolescents in middle school years as this is the time frame for growing independence, desire to fit-in and an increase risk for their own experimentation with substances.

Enrollment: 576 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 10+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• The adult must be the legal guardian of a child in 6th, 7th or 8th grade (known hereafter as "parent").
• The parent must be able and willing to receive email and text communication as part of the study.
• The parent-child pair must have access to a smartphone with internet connection as the resource review will be completed online in a format that is best viewed on a smartphone.
• The parent-child pair must be fluent in English as the study materials are conducted in English.
• The parent must indicate that they will give the child participant privacy to complete the questionnaires
• Both the adult and child must agree to participate.

Exclusion criteria

• In an effort to ensure diversity in parent gender and race/ethnicity, not all eligible pairs who are interested in participating will be enrolled in the study.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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576 participants in 2 patient groups

Web-based intervention

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention is a web-based resource that provides parents with media literacy and media mediation skills, knowledge about adolescent development and substance use, and practice in high quality parent-child communication.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Media Ready Parent

Active Control Program

Active Comparator group

Description:

The active control is a web-based resource that contains PDFs of medically accurate information about adolescent substance use.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Active Control Program