Clinical trial NCT05285267: Engaging Male Caregivers in Effective Prevention Programming to Reduce Risk of Violence and Violence-Related Injury
Official title: Engaging Male Caregivers in Effective Prevention Programming to Reduce Risk of Violence and Violence-Related Injury
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Child Maltreatment
Parenting
Lead sponsor: Florida International University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Buffalo Prenatal Perinatal Network
First posted: 2022-03-17
Enrollment: 139
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 3
Maximum age (years): 6
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: Fathers are disproportionately involved in and responsible for family violence. Forty percent of maltreatment cases include the child's father, which is quite considerable when one considers mothers spend more time with the child during the day and engage in a greater variety of activities, relative to fathers. Importantly, the majority of child victims were those five and younger.

Contrary to these potential negative impacts, fathers contribute positively to many aspects of child development and overall family functioning, making unique contributions to child peer relationships, language development, academic skills, and the proficiency of the other parent in parenting tasks. Thus, efforts to emphasize the father's role in the child's life, and attenuate any potential risks due to child or family directed violence, represent key public health initiatives within prevention efforts.

There are many potential prevention programs that have been developed to support male caregivers. The Nurturing Fathers program and the Coaching Our Children: Heightening Essential Skills program are two examples of father-focused preventive intervention efforts. However, these approaches have not typically been evaluated as preventive interventions in community-based samples using scientifically rigorous methods. Thus, the present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of these approaches in reducing family violence and improving male caregiver competencies in a randomized, controlled trial. Specifically, Nurturing Fathers Alone and Nurturing Fathers + COACHES will be compared to an attention control, and male caregivers and their children will be randomly assigned to one of the three groups.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Resident of Western New York
* Have a target child three to six years of age
* Have a male caregiver who consents to participate in the study
* Caregiver and child can speak and understand English.

Exclusion Criteria:

* A child with an estimated IQ less than 70
* Any child who is presenting with severe developmental delays (e.g., autism level 2 or 3)
* A child or caregiver who previously participated in the study
* Any target child who has a male or female caregiver who has had a previous, founded, child protection complaint (will be excluded from the study and referred to alternative programming)

Primary outcomes:
measure: Behavioral Observations of Parenting
timeFrame: Baseline, End of Intervention (8 weeks later), 1 month after end of intervention (12 weeks later)
measure: Conflict Tactics Scale
timeFrame: Baseline, End of Intervention (8 weeks later), 1 month after end of intervention (12 weeks later)
measure: Parenting Alliance Inventory
timeFrame: Baseline, End of Intervention (8 weeks later), 1 month after end of intervention (12 weeks later)
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Amherst
country: United States
facility: Center for Children and Families
state: New York
Study officials:
References: