Home-Based Program to Help Parents of Drug Abusing Adolescents
Condition: Substance-Related Disorders; Drug Addiction; Substance Abuse
MeSH terms: Substance-Related Disorders; Behavior, Addictive
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This project is aimed at parents with a teenager who is already starting to use drugs. The
      study will test a new, innovative version of a brief intervention. This program will be home
      based rather than implemented by a counselor in a clinical setting. The stage I activities
      will involve manual development, parent training development, and a small feasibility study;
      Stage II involves an efficacy study. Two samples, 110 families each, will participate in the
      trial. Families will be assigned to either an intervention or control condition. The
      investigators hypothesize that the home-based intervention will be superior to the control
      condition. In addition, the investigators expect response to the intervention by the
      adolescent to be mediated by motivation, cognitions, problem solving, peer drug use,
      parenting skills and parent self-efficacy.
    

Detailed description: 
      Little attention has been paid to the large group of adolescents who use substances but are
      not, or not yet, dependent and who could successfully reduce substance use through early
      intervention. Brief interventions (BI) that are based in cognitive-behavioral and
      motivational interviewing (CB-MI) strategies provide an option for such mid-level drug
      abusers (e.g., DSM-IV substance abuse disorder), and extant research on them suggests this
      approach can be effective with youth.

      Winters and colleagues have studied with controlled designs the efficacy of brief
      interventions for application to mild-to-moderate substance abusing adolescents. These
      studies have used the more traditional approach of counselor-led interventions. This program
      will be parent-led rather than directed by a counselor in a clinical setting.

      The stage I activities will involve manual development, parent training development, and a
      small feasibility study; Stage II involves an efficacy trial. Two samples, 110 families each,
      will participate in the trial. Families will be assigned to either an intervention or control
      condition. Data to quantify intervention effects will be obtained by interviewing adolescents
      and the target parent at multiple time points (baseline and, 3-, 6- and 12-months post
      baseline). The investigators hypothesize that the home-based intervention will be superior to
      the control condition. In addition, the investigators expect response to the intervention by
      the adolescent to be mediated by motivation, cognitions, problem solving, peer drug use,
      parenting skills and parent self-efficacy. Secondary analyses will focus on additional
      predictors of intervention effects, and analyses of parent adherence, parent acceptance, and
      of training adherence.

      The final product of the work will be a tested comparative intervention protocol that is
      shaped in an engaging and useful presentation format for use by parents.
    

Intervention name(s): Home-Based Intervention; Educational Group
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Parents will be trained through a 3 1/2-hour series on providing a 3-session drug and alcohol intervention program to their adolescent. The parent-led intervention will require parents to meet with their adolescent and work together to help strengthen family cohesiveness, enhance communication, and promote healthy life choices.; Printed fact sheets will be delivered to parents in a single two-hour session. These fact sheets will provide general drug-related information from the public domain (e.g., substance use trends and well-known dangers of substance involvement), and focus on communication approaches and talking points when discussing substance use with their adolescent (e.g., why adolescents use; how the media may influence attitudes about substances).
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Adolescent; Parent; Substance Abuse; Parent Training; Addiction; Family Intervention; Brief Intervention; Home Intervention