Reducing Teen Pregnancy in the Emergency Department (ERICA)

Columbia University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Contraception; Sexual Behavior; Adolescent Behavior; Reproductive Behavior

Treatments: Behavioral: Dr. Erica

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT03866811

AAAR6781 (Part 2)

1K23HD096060-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will determine the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of an emergency department-based pregnancy prevention intervention targeting sexually active adolescent female emergency department patients.

Full description

Emergency Departments (ED) care for 15 million adolescents each year. Adolescents who use the ED are at particularly high risk of unintended pregnancy. To date, no intervention has successfully increased contraception use among this high risk, hard-to-reach ED population.

In this study, the investigators will conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial of a user-informed, theory-based, personalized, interactive, pregnancy prevention text messaging intervention (Dr. Erica) to determine its feasibility, acceptability and potential efficacy. The investigators hypothesize that high risk adolescent female ED patients who receive Dr. Erica will more often initiate contraceptives than those females who receive standard discharge instructions alone.

At baseline and follow-up assessment at 3 months, participants will provide information regarding effective contraception initiation, any contraception at last intercourse, follow up with reproductive preventive health services, and contraception self-efficacy.

Enrollment: 146 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 14 to 19 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• female emergency department patient
• age 14-19 years
• sexually active with males in the past 3 months

Exclusion criteria

• currently using any effective form of contraception
• do not own a mobile phone with texting
• are pregnant
• are too ill for participation per the attending physician
• are cognitively impaired
• do not live locally
• do not speak English
• want to "become pregnant in the next year"

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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146 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention arm

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention consists of a brief contraception educational video and then the 10-week texting intervention which consists of 30 automated, personalized and interactive texting algorithms (3 texts per week).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Dr. Erica

Control arm

No Intervention group

Description:

Patients randomized to the control arm will receive the current standard discharge instructions provided in the investigator's ED.