Safe, Healthy, Adolescent Relationships and Peers (SHARP-Teen)

University of Oregon

Status: Completed

Conditions: Risk Behavior; Sexual Behavior; Juvenile Delinquency Unspecified; Drug Use; Adolescent Behavior

Treatments: Behavioral: Parent Ed. and Youth Skills Coaching; Behavioral: Services as Usual

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT02420548

1P50DA035763 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

10312013.040

Details and patient eligibility

About

The Safe, Healthy, Adolescent Relationships and Peers study seeks to understand some of the factors that contribute to the behaviors and health of teen girls, such as girl's friendships, their dating behaviors, their risk-taking behaviors, and their knowledge about how to make healthy choices. This study will inform us on ways to help teen girls engage in safe and healthy relationships and adjustment.

Full description

Initiation of drug use and participation in sexual-risk behaviors such as having multiple sexual partners, unprotected sexual intercourse, and intercourse with drug users are all too common among girls with at-risk histories, such as those who have experienced poverty, abuse, neglect, or been in the juvenile justice system. Studies consistently find that these girls have disproportionately high rates of these problems that, in addition to increasing risk for negative outcomes, have other costly sequelae such as drug addiction, early pregnancy, sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV contraction, delinquency, and early mortality (e.g., Santelli et al., 2001; Stueve et al., 2005). In our prior work, the investigators showed that the investigators could prevent early onset sexual intercourse and tobacco and marijuana initiation in pre-teen girls in foster care. Although this intervention, delivered to girls who were 11-years old and had not yet entered middle school, demonstrated efficacy, the investigators know very little about how to prevent the more serious and costly sexual-risk and illicit drug use behaviors in at-risk girls during the high school years, a period of risk for engagement in such behaviors. This study builds from this prior work to develop a new intervention for teenage girls with early adversity.

Enrollment: 122 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 13 to 18 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• reside in Lane County and within 70 miles of the University of Oregon
• have a current caregiver
• both girl and caregiver are fluent in English

Exclusion criteria

• are medically fragile
• have a significant developmental disability
• have graduated from high school or have a General Educational Diploma (GED)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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122 participants in 2 patient groups

Services as Usual

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants continue with any services they may be receiving outside of the study.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Services as Usual

Parent Ed. and Youth Skills Coaching

Experimental group

Description:

The experimental intervention will have two components: (1) a caregiver parenting group, including all caregiver types (biological, foster, kinship), that meets weekly for 90-minutes for four months, focused on increasing parenting skills, and (2) a Life Coach component where trained and supported skills coaches meet individually with youth weekly for 60 minutes over the same four-month period to build the girls' social skills and peer/partner relationships skills.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Parent Ed. and Youth Skills Coaching

Behavioral: Services as Usual