Age 6 Test of Home Visits by Nurses vs Paraprofessionals

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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To examine the impact of prenatal and infancy home visiting by paraprofessionals and by nurses from child age 2 through 6.

Detailed Description
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This project supports an age-six assessment of 669 children and their families who were enrolled in a randomized trail that compared prenatal and infancy home visiting by nurses versus paraprofessionals. Both groups of visitors in each study employed essentially the same program model. The program model has proven to be effective using nurses when focused on European-American and African Americans in earlier trails conducted over the past 20 years. Paraprofessional visitors in the current trail share many of the social characteristics of the families they visited. The current study also allows us to examine the extent to which these different visitor types produce effects with Mexican Americans that are similar to those achieved with European-Americans and African Americans in previous trails of this program using nurse home visitors. The sample is composed of low-income women who had no previous live births and who were substantially ethnic minorities (46 percent Mexican American, 16 percent African American, and 3 percent Native American/Asian), unmarried (87 percent), and less than 19 years of age (58 percent) at the time of registration during pregnancy. In earlier phases of assessment, the nurse-visitor program was found to reduce women's use of tobacco during pregnancy; to improve the home environments and quality of care that mothers provided to their children; to improve the language and mental development of children born to mothers with low psychological resources (where psychological resources were defined as high rates of mental disorder symptoms, limited intellectual functioning, and little belief in their control over their life circumstances); and to improve maternal life-course, as reflected in fewer subsequent pregnancies and increases in employment. The paraprofessional program produced smaller, mostly non-significant and inconsistent effects while the program was in operation, but recent evidence from a 4-year follow up of the sample now suggests that paraprofessional program effects on parental caregiving and child development may be increasing as the children mature. The current proposal seeks support to determine whether the beneficial effects of the nurse home visiting program endure through the children's completion of kindergarten at age six, and whether beneficial effects emerge at this later time period for families visited by paraprofessionals.

Official Title
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Age 6 Test of Home Visits by Nurses vs Paraprofessionals

Conditions
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Child Rearing, Risk Reduction Behavior, Reproductive Behavior

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: home visitation


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Women were recruited from 21 antepartum clinics serving low-income women in Denver if they had no previous live births and either qualified for Medicaid or had no private insurance.
Sexes Eligible for Study
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Female

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Triple


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| No Intervention: 1<br>Control group | |
| Experimental: 2<br>Paraprofessional home visits | Behavioral: home visitation<br>* Home visitation from midway through pregnancy until child age 2. Group 2 is visitation by Paraprofessionals; group 3 is home visitation by Nurses.<br>|
| Experimental: 3<br>Nurse home visitation | Behavioral: home visitation<br>* Home visitation from midway through pregnancy until child age 2. Group 2 is visitation by Paraprofessionals; group 3 is home visitation by Nurses.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| increased interval between the birth of the first and second child; |  | When first child is 6 | 
| increased cohabitation with the biological father of the child and the involvement of a supportive male partner; |  | When first child is 6 | 
| increase parents' competent care of their children, as reflected in greater involvement and monitoring of their children's behavior, more consistent discipline, and greater investment in their children's educational achievement. |  | When first child is 6 | 
| children's behavior problems and expressions of dysregulated aggressive and violent themes in their response to the MacArthur Story Stem Battery |  | When child is 6 | 
| children's compromised executive functions, language and intellectual skills |  | When child is 6 | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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nurse, home visits, pregnancy, welfare, child development