Development and Evaluation of an Internet Based Adaptation of the New Beginnings Program for Divorced Parents
Phase: NA
Conditions: Divorce
Sponsor: Family Transitions: Programs that Work

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
An Internet Based Adaptation of a Divorce Intervention Beginnings Program for 
Divorced Parents 
 
NCT05209932 
 
December 27, 2022 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
Study Protocol. The protocol is described as it was presented in the grant application. 
However, due to the COVID pandemic the trial was much more difficult to conduct than 
anticipated. In order to preserve our ability to implement the RCT, the scope of the trial was 
modified to have a reduced number of participants and to drop the follow-up assessment while 
preserving random assignment and responses from both children and parents. These changes 
were approved by our program officer. We also changed the comparison condition from an 
internet program comparison to a waitlist control condition because we felt that the latter is a 
more ecologically valid comparison.   
  
Recruitment and Procedures. Qualtrics leading-edge sample acquisition technology will be 
used to recruit 360 parents from a nationally representative sample of divorced parents that 
includes the same percentages of ethnic groups as in the US Census data.   
  
Initial sampling criteria will include: divorced, separated but never married, divorcing or 
separating; has one child or more between 6 and 18, and English speaking. As in our 
effectiveness trial, both mothers and fathers as well as separating parents who were never 
legally married will be eligible to participate. Parents who meet initial sampling criteria will be 
sent an email with further information about the study including a link to a video invitation to 
participate in the study. Parents will complete a web-based survey including questions about 
contact level with child/ren (to be eligible parents need to have a minimum amount of contact 
defined as at least three hours/week or at least one overnight every other week) and access to 
a computer with high-speed internet or a smart phone. We will receive a list with phone 
numbers and email addresses of parents who fully meet the above criteria and are interested in 
participating in the study. A research specialist will contact parents by phone to provide details 
of the study (e.g., random assignment, compensation), rescreen for eligibility and have parents 
complete a consent form using Konexx, a leading voice-recording product.  
  
Parents with offspring ages 11 to 18 will be asked to provide permission for them to participate 
in assessments. Based on our previous randomized trials with divorced families, we anticipate 
there will be 1.5 children/family who are between 6 and 18 years old, giving a total of 540 
children. We anticipate that 50% of the offspring will be 11 or older, giving a possible total of 270 
adolescent reports.  
Offspring ages 11-18 whose parents provide permission for them to participate in the 
assessments will be called by a research specialist who will explain the nature of their 
participation and have the adolescent complete one of two developmentally appropriate assent 
forms (11-13; 14-17) or consent (18) form using Konexx. After the consent/assent process has 
been completed, parents and youth will be emailed a web link to access the pretest. After this 
link is sent, parents and youth will receive up to three email reminders (every 2 days) about 
completing the pretest. The assessments will be 15 minutes in length and parents and youth will 
each receive $30 electronic gift card for each assessment.  
  
Immediately after completing the pretest, parents will be randomly assigned (block by gender 
and ethnicity) to the eNBP or to a waitlist comparison condition using a computerized program. 
Parents in the eNBP condition will be sent a link to eNBP and instructed to complete the 
program over the next 10 weeks. Parents in the WebC will be sent a link to the control web-site 
and will be instructed to use the material on the website over the next 10 weeks. To reduce 
attrition across assessments, contact efforts (e.g., address verification requests by email, 

contact with non-responders by phone or letter) will be conducted every two months. Parents 
will receive a $5 electronic gift card for providing address updates. Three months after the 
pretest, participants will be sent a link to the posttest assessment.  
Phone calls will be made to non-responders. Six months after the posttest, participants will be 
sent a link to the 6-month follow-up assessment; phone calls will be made to non-responders. 
Upon completion of the 6-month follow-up survey, parents in the WebC will receive a link to 
access eNBP. Study procedures will be reviewed by the Quorum Institutional Review Board 
(IRB). Dr. Porter will develop and submit the IRB protocol, with significant input from Drs. 
Sandler and Wolchik.  
  
Conditions. eNBP will consist of 10 modules that teach skills to increase positive family 
interactions, active listening skills, and effective discipline, and decrease exposure to 
interparental conflict.   
  
Parents in the WebC will be provided with a link to a website that has been recommended by 
authoritative experts.  
  
C3.33 Measures. Parents and youth ages 11 to 18 will complete measures of parenting, conflict 
and children’s outcomes. Parents will answer questions about parenting and children’s 
outcomes for each of their children ages 6-18. The timeframe for all measures will be the last 
month. We will use age and gender norms for the BPM. We selected measures that have been 
shown to be sensitive to program effects, are appropriate for children 6 to 18, are equivalent 
across ethnic groups, and have adequate reliability and validity. When possible, we will obtain 
parent and child report of a construct.   
  
Data Analyses. All data will be managed and processed by project staff to ensure that the data 
collected are of the highest quality. Block randomization, which improves face validity, precision, 
and power, will be conducted within parent gender and ethnicity using a random number 
generator. Power is based on the MPlus simulation program or Optimal Design using α = .05 
(two-tailed) and power (1-β) = .80. We will apply intent-to-treat analyses (i.e., including every 
family who is randomized) to examine program effects. We will perform sensitivity analyses to 
check the nonresponse mechanism and attrition analyses (i.e., comparing those who stay and 
those who leave across condition) on the baseline variables to understand the patterns of 
attrition and then use modern analytical strategies such as multiple imputation (MI) or full 
information maximum likelihood (FIML) for dealing with ignorable missing data (i.e., missing 
completely at random [MCAR] or missing at random [MAR]) or the selection model or the 
pattern mixture model to deal with nonignorable missing data (i.e., missing not completely at 
random [MNAR]). Thus, we will use the entire randomized sample for hypothesis testing 
Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) will test measurement models for the domains that involve 
multiple indicators or multiple informants. Such data reduction procedures will serve to reduce 
measurement errors and consolidate measures into key theoretical constructs. We will examine 
measurement equivalence across child age (e.g., 6-9, 10-18), gender, and ethnicity.  Mplus130 
will be the primary statistical program for our analyses which can incorporate FIML and MI for 
handling missing data.  
  
Outcome analyses. We will compare means across condition at post-test and 6-month follow-up 
using random effects or mixed effects analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) controlling for possible 
baseline differences. Clusters of children in the same family will be treated as random effects. 
The 6-month follow-up analyses will assess maintenance or an increase or decrease in effects 
over time. We will use all of the three assessments and conduct repeated measures random 

effects model (i.e., time points nested in individuals and children nested in families) to evaluate 
the trajectory of program effects. Specifically, we will estimate whether individual trajectories 
vary from person to person and whether the inter-individual variation is systematically related to 
condition. In addition to main effects, we are interested in potential differential program effects 
across baseline conflict, parent gender and ethnicity and child age. Moderation will be tested 
using the condition by moderator interaction. For significant interactions, we will conduct simple 
effects analyses to probe the magnitude and direction of the program effects at different levels 
of the moderator. Depending on the intraclass correlation (ICC), we have power to detect a 
mean difference with a small effect for the full sample (d = .25-.29; .36-.41 for adolescents 
[1018]). For the moderated effects, we have power to detect a small effect for the full sample 
(R2 = 2%-3%; 4%-5% for adolescents [10-18]). Note that the interaction effects in randomized 
trials are in general small.   
  
For models with limited power, we plan to use bootstrap methods, which improve precision of 
asymptotic approximations (e.g., confidence interval) or a Bayesian approach, which 
incorporates prior information to improve estimation, for hypothesis testing. For repeated 
measures, we have power to detect a small effect for the full sample (i.e., d = .20-.22; .27-.31 
adolescents [10-18]). A simulation study shows that mixture modeling with repeated measures 
provides better power than the traditional ANCOVA.