What motivates participation and dropout among low-income urban families of color in a prevention intervention?

What Motivates Participation and Dropout Among Low-Income Urban Families of Color in a Prevention Intervention?* Low-income urban parents of color enrolled in a parent training study were interviewed to understand what motivated their participation and what led 30% of them to subsequently drop out. Most enrolled because they wanted to be better parents. Most dropped out because of time and schedule constraints. Retention was higher when parents' motivations for participation matched program goals. Program location and qualities of the recruiter were cited most often as important; financial compensation was cited least often as important. Key Words: attrition, low-income families, minority, parent training, participation, prevention. Parent training during early childhood has been identified as a potentially powerful intervention for promoting positive parenting skills and reducing risk factors associated with antisocial behavior in children (Gross, Fogg, & Tucker, 1995; Kazdin, 1997; Webster-Stratton, 1998). However, parent training studies are plagued by methodological flaws that affect most prevention studies: low participation and attendance rates and high attrition rates (Coie et al., 1993; Given, Keilman, Collins, & Given, 1990; Motzer, Moseley, & Lewis, 1997; Siddiqui, Flay, Phil, & Hu, 1996). Poor participation and high attrition rates are particularly apparent in research using low-income families of color. For example, in a study of the effectiveness of the Effective Black Parenting Program for inner city African-American families, Myers et al. (1992) reported participation rates as low as 13% and attendance rates at parent group meetings as low as 33%. Study validity is further compromised by the fact that low participation and retention tend to be systematically related to those risk factors that also are associated with poor childhood outcomes including low socioeconomic status, single parenthood, and lower parent educational levels (Forehand, Middlebrook, Rogers, & Steffe, 1983; Haggerty et al., 2000; Spoth, Goldberg, & Redmond, 1999; Weinberger, Tublin, Ford, & Feldman, 1990). These biases in participation and drop-out rates make it difficult to interpret the effectiveness of parent training for low-income families. Further, these biases make it difficult to determine whether the successes reported for parent training among middle-- class European-American families can be generalized to low-- income families of color (Forehand & Kotchick, 1996). To increase enrollment among low-income populations, researchers have typically implemented a range of costly incentives, such as monetary rewards for attending parent groups, monetary rewards for completing research assessments, gifts and door prizes, free food and childcare, and transportation (Cipaldi & Patterson, 1987; Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 1999; Dumka, Garza, Roosa & Stoerzinger, 1997; Stoy et al., 1995). However, it is not clear the degree to which these incentives are, in fact, important to the members of the target population (Moore, 1997; Saylor, Elksnin, Farah, & Pope, 1990). For example, parents participating in the Fast Track prevention intervention were paid $15 for every 2-hour class they attended (Orrell-Valente, Pinderhughes, Valente, Laird, & Conduct Problems Research Groups, 1999). Although enrollment rates were high, parent attendance at these groups averaged 56.3% of sessions. In a study of parent skills training for parents of middleschool children, Irvine and others (Irvine, Biglan, Smolkowski, Metzler, & Ary, 1999) offered a series of payments to parents for varying levels of participation. These included $10 for allowing the recruiter to come to their home, another $10 for attending at least 4 of the first 6 parenting classes, $10 for attending at least 4 of the last 6 classes, and an additional $10 for attending a total of 10 of the 12 classes. …