Safe, Healthy, Adolescent Relationships and Peers

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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The Safe, Healthy, Adolescent Relationships and Peers study seeks to understand some of the factors that contribute to the behaviors and health of teen girls, such as girl's friendships, their dating behaviors, their risk-taking behaviors, and their knowledge about how to make healthy choices. This study will inform us on ways to help teen girls engage in safe and healthy relationships and adjustment.

Detailed Description
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Initiation of drug use and participation in sexual-risk behaviors such as having multiple sexual partners, unprotected sexual intercourse, and intercourse with drug users are all too common among girls with at-risk histories, such as those who have experienced poverty, abuse, neglect, or been in the juvenile justice system. Studies consistently find that these girls have disproportionately high rates of these problems that, in addition to increasing risk for negative outcomes, have other costly sequelae such as drug addiction, early pregnancy, sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV contraction, delinquency, and early mortality (e.g., Santelli et al., 2001; Stueve et al., 2005). In our prior work, the investigators showed that the investigators could prevent early onset sexual intercourse and tobacco and marijuana initiation in pre-teen girls in foster care. Although this intervention, delivered to girls who were 11-years old and had not yet entered middle school, demonstrated efficacy, the investigators know very little about how to prevent the more serious and costly sexual-risk and illicit drug use behaviors in at-risk girls during the high school years, a period of risk for engagement in such behaviors. This study builds from this prior work to develop a new intervention for teenage girls with early adversity.

Official Title
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Preventing Drug Use and Risk Behaviors in Adolescent Girls

Conditions
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Juvenile Delinquency Unspecified, Risk Behavior, Adolescent Behavior, Sexual Behavior, Drug Use

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Parent Ed. and Youth Skills Coaching
* Behavioral: Services as Usual


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: reside in Lane County and within 70 miles of the University of Oregon have a current caregiver both girl and caregiver are fluent in English Exclusion Criteria: are medically fragile have a significant developmental disability have graduated from high school or have a General Educational Diploma (GED)

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 13 Years
Maximum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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Female

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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No

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: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Active Comparator: Services as Usual<br>Participants continue with any services they may be receiving outside of the study. | Behavioral: Services as Usual<br>* Services as usual as provided by community service organizations from which the sample was drawn.<br>|
| Experimental: Parent Ed. and Youth Skills Coaching<br>The experimental intervention will have two components: (1) a caregiver parenting group, including all caregiver types (biological, foster, kinship), that meets weekly for 90-minutes for four months, focused on increasing parenting skills, and (2) a Life Coach component where trained and supported skills coaches meet individually with youth weekly for 60 minutes over the same four-month period to build the girls' social skills and peer/partner relationships skills. | Behavioral: Parent Ed. and Youth Skills Coaching<br>* The experimental intervention will have two components: (1) a caregiver parenting group, including all caregiver types (biological, foster, kinship), that meets weekly for 90-minutes for four months, focused on increasing parenting skills, and (2) a Life Coach component where trained and supported skills coaches meet individually with youth weekly for 60 minutes over the same four-month period to build the girls' social skills and peer/partner relationships skills.<br>Behavioral: Services as Usual<br>* Services as usual as provided by community service organizations from which the sample was drawn.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Delinquency measured by official arrest records and standardized questionnaires | Reduction in delinquent behaviors for teens participating in the intervention arm measured by official arrest records and standardized questionnaires, including the Youth Symptom inventory, the Elliott Self-report Delinquency Scale, the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment, and the Parent Daily Report. | Up to 12 months | 
| Sexual Risk Behavior | Reduction in high risk sexual behaviors for teens participating in the intervention arm measured by standardized questionnaires, including Partner and Peer Behavior, Conflict in Adolescent Dating, Sexual Health Scale, and the Parent Daily Report. | Up to 12 months | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Parenting measured by change in parenting practices for parents participating in the intervention arm measured by standardized questionnaires | including the Monitoring and Parent-Child Relationship, the Parent Practices Scale, the Parent Daily Report, and the Unrevealed Differences Questionnaire. | Up to 12 months | 
| Substance Use | Reduction in substance use for teens participating in the intervention arm measured by urine analysis and standardized questionnaires, including the Youth Symptom Inventory, the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview, and the Parent Daily Report. | Up to 12 months |