New at Parenting Study (NAPS)

University of San Francisco

Status: Completed

Conditions: Counseling; Control Group

Treatments: Behavioral: Brief and solutions-therapy intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07076381

934

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study examines whether a brief counseling intervention provided to parents virtually in the first six months after having their baby is able to reduce and prevent the development of depression symptoms, anxiety, and stress. It also explores whether parents' confidence increases over time and whether they feel more support by the end of the intervention. The study will compare a group of parents who receive the intervention from trained graduate students in clinical psychology with a group of parents who do not receive the intervention.

Select parents will also be interviewed to understand their experiences of new parenting and to help explain the research findings of the study.

Full description

The primary purpose of this pilot study is to examine the impact of receiving regularly scheduled phone counseling services delivered by advanced, trained clinical psychology doctoral students during the first six months of parenthood, for low-risk first-time parents. This study will examine whether parents who receive scheduled phone counseling services delivered through brief therapy techniques demonstrate a greater change from pregnancy to six months postpartum in their anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, self-efficacy/parenting confidence, stress, and social support when compared to a matched control group of parents who do not receive regularly scheduled phone calls.

A secondary purpose of this study is to qualitatively explore the experience of parents who undergo the initial transition to parenthood; that is, what are the common themes requiring support that emerge with respect to the transition to parenthood? Additionally, the study aims to identify the acceptability and utility of using a phone-based counseling service for new parents and to elicit feedback about potential modifications that can be made to increase the positive impact of the service in the future.

Enrollment: 58 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Biological parent who is (or has a partner who is) between 27 and 39 weeks pregnant with first child OR a parent who is planning to adopt a newborn child within the timeline of the study;
• Parent does not have current psychiatric history/hospitalizations;
• Parent has a reliable phone and/or computer connection that will enable them to receive calls from Parentline team member and complete online questionnaires

Exclusion criteria

Participants who do not meet the inclusion criteria will not be eligible for the study.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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58 participants in 2 patient groups

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Control group participants will have an assigned counselor for the study duration and can access them at any time. They will not have a defined treatment schedule in the way that counseling group participants do.

Counseling Group

Experimental group

Description:

Counseling group participants will receive three brief therapy sessions virtually from the same counselor between 1 and 5 months postpartum. The intervention is adapted from brief and solutions-therapy and operates on single-session therapy principles.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Brief and solutions-therapy intervention