Improving Emotion Regulation in Adolescents With ADHD

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Adhd

Treatments: Behavioral: RELAX

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03733548

HM20013904

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of our study is to examine the impact of a program that provides emotion regulation skills for adolescents aged 11-16 with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and poor emotion regulation. The program is called RELAX (Regulating Emotions Like An eXpert). RELAX is an experimental intervention that may equip adolescents with emotion regulation and conflict management skills and includes parent involvement to help parents support adolescents' use of these skills.

Full description

Regulating Emotions Like An eXpert (RELAX) consists of 8 weekly 90-minute group sessions and 1 booster session 8 weeks after the completion of the RELAX intervention. The first 60 minutes of each group involve separate parent and adolescent groups. Adolescents (ages 11-16) attend an emotion regulation and conflict management skills group, while parents attend a group focused on how to support utilization of these skills in adolescents at home and school through use of modeling their own emotion regulation skills and use of supportive emotion socialization practices. For the final 30 minutes of the session, parents and adolescents combine and complete a collaborative activity and skill rehearsal homework is discussed for the week. Homework will be discussed at the beginning of the separate group meetings the following week. The primary overall goal of the RELAX intervention is to assist adolescents and parents in traveling down the Path of RELAXation by working on the three C's (communication, coping, and conflict management skills). A multimethod assessment of emotional, social, and family functioning will be assessed pre- and post-intervention and at an 8 week follow-up.

Enrollment: 20 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 11 to 16 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria (adolescents):

• ADHD diagnosis
• parent-reported emotion regulation in the clinical range
• full scale intelligence quotient ≥80
• English as a primary language

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

20 participants in 1 patient group

Regulating Emotions Like An eXpert (RELAX)

Experimental group

Description:

Families at the Virginia Commonwealth University Center for Psychological Services and Development or Clark-Hill Institute for Positive Youth Development

Treatment:

Behavioral: RELAX