Mitigating ACEs in Pediatric Primary Care: Cohort #2 With 6-24 Month Old Children

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Parenting; Child Abuse; Violence

Treatments: Behavioral: Discipline education; Behavioral: Cavity Prevention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04160013

171485

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim is to determine if a brief intervention can affect parents' attitudes about physical punishment and other parenting behaviors.

Full description

A public health problem that needs to be solved is how to educate more parents about healthy discipline options. The investigators aim to mitigate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) by integrating evidence-based parent training into pediatric primary care. Some of the most modifiable ACEs are associated with parenting behaviors that can lead to child abuse. The investigators define unhealthy parenting behaviors such as spanking, threatening, yelling, and humiliation. For adults in the original ACEs study, it was exposure to these behaviors that led to the categorization of child abuse/neglect and that were associated with heart disease, obesity, depression, smoking, drug use, violence, and many other problems. This study may help change policy and practice related to mitigating ACEs in primary care. To accomplish this goal, randomized controlled trials are needed to test brief screening tools and evidence-based resources. A population-based approach is needed to reach all parents (i.e. primary prevention). In the study, parents in the intervention group will receive 3 minutes of education about healthy discipline strategies.

Enrollment: 533 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 6 months to 2 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Parents of 6 month to 2 year old children presenting to the Vanderbilt Pediatric Primary Care Clinic for a well visit or an acute care visit.

Exclusion criteria

• Parents who do not speak and read English, Spanish, or Arabic. The interventions are only available in English, Spanish, and Arabic.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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533 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

Discipline education

Experimental group

Description:

Education about discipline using the Play Nicely program (www.playnicely.org).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Discipline education

Cavity prevention

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Education about cavity prevention using a 2 page handout.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cavity Prevention