The Effect of an Intervention Based on Implicit Theories of Personality on the Prevention of Adolescent Dating Violence

University of Deusto

Status: Completed

Conditions: Dating Violence

Treatments: Behavioral: Incremental theory of personality; Other: Educational Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03583645

PI_2016_1_0023

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study evaluates the efficacy of an intervention based on the Implicit Theories of Personality (ITP) to prevent dating violence in Spanish adolescents. Half of participants received the ITP intervention, while the other half received an educational intervention.

Full description

Intimate partner violence is a problem arising in adolescence, which causes severe suffering. Since the first romantic relationships are established during adolescence, implementation of preventive interventions during this developmental stage opens a window of opportunity for the prevention of partner aggression. Previous prevention programs have shown efficacy in modifying cognitions and attitudes related to dating violence, although behavioral changes have been reported in very few cases. Recent innovative brief interventions based on changing entity theories of personality (i.e., the belief that people cannot change and personal characteristics are fixed; Miu & Yeager, 2015) have provided good results for preventing depression and other behavioral problems in adolescents. Therefore, the principal aim of this study is to examine whether a brief one-hour intervention based on promoting the idea that people can change shows efficacy in the prevention of perpetration and victimization of dating aggressive behaviors (both online -cyber dating abuse- and traditional -face-to-face dating aggression-) in adolescents. Additionally, other objective of the project is to examine whether gender moderates the effects of the intervention in changes in dating violence. The study involves the evaluation of the intervention in a sample of around 400 adolescents (13-18 years), randomly allocated to experimental and control conditions. It is a field experiment conducted in high schools and involves multiple measures over time (self-reports and parent reports). In summary, the project aims to respond to the challenge of health and wellness in the population through a randomized controlled trial with multiple sources of measure and from a biopsychosocial perspective. The ITP intervention has the potential to become a universal intervention to help reduce the rates of adolescent dating violence.

Enrollment: 402 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 13 to 18 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Informed consent by the adolescents and their parents.
• To be fluent in Spanish.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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402 participants in 2 patient groups

Incremental theory of personality

Experimental group

Description:

1 hour behavioral intervention (based on ITP) consisting on several tasks to be completed on paper individually.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Incremental theory of personality

Educational intervention

Other group

Description:

1 hour educational intervention (about the human brain) consisting on several tasks to be completed on paper individually.

Treatment:

Other: Educational Intervention