Clinical trial NCT05995574: Avatar Contraception Communication Training
Official title: Improving Clinician Communication About Contraception Using Teen and Parent Avatars
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Communication
Keywords: Adolescent
Contraception
Training
Lead sponsor: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2023-08-16
Enrollment: 166
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Intervention model description: single intervention arm with pre- and post- evaluation.
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: In order to support the desire of most adolescents to delay pregnancy (parenting) until their own adulthood, pediatricians must be comfortable and skilled in having reproductive health conversations with adolescents and the mothers of adolescents. Advocates for Youth (AFY), a national, youth-facing, well-established, non-profit, is known for innovative sexual and reproductive health programs. AFY successfully implemented a virtual simulation for schoolteachers to practice sex education scenarios by interacting with culturally diverse student avatars. We will partner with AFY to adapt their novel simulation-based approach to train medical residents in using SDM with youth and parent avatars. Our long-term goal is to build clinician confidence in SDM and actual skills via simulation training with dyadic avatars. We will also explore how evaluation of clinician communication skills varies from youth-, parent-, and clinician-viewpoints.

Detailed description: Specific Aims seek to (1) iteratively adapt and refine the simulation training (1a) and measurement tools (1b) with three community advisory boards (CAB) of separate groups of teens, parents, and clinicians; and (2) conduct a proof-of-concept pre-post evaluation of clinician confidence in counseling dyads after one-time exposure to the simulation (n=100 medical residents). We will record residents' communications in the simulation and a subset of clinicians, parents, and adolescents from each CAB will evaluate residents' SDM skills via the Person-Centered Contraception Counseling (PCCC) scale. Hypothesis: Most medical residents (75%) will self-report improvement or stability in confidence with high acceptability of the simulation training. We will explore 1) overall concordance between self- and expert-reported evaluation outcomes (SDM skills, PCCC scale); 2) compare the distribution of each evaluation item by evaluator; and 3) explore correlations between scales by evaluator. Impact: This proof-of-concept study, co-developed and co-evaluated with community members and families, fills a gap in communication training to inform a future fully powered ORBIT stage 3 efficacy trial to test actual triadic communication in the real-world with comparator groups of medical residents across national training programs.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria (providers):

* Providers (medical residents, fellows, attendings)
* Recruited from the Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Medicine Clinic at Children\&#39;s Medical Center of Dallas.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Unable to speak or read in Spanish/English

Primary outcomes:
measure: Questionnaire
timeFrame: Change from baseline (T0) at 0 hours, and end of training (T2) at 2 hours
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Acceptability Questionnaire
timeFrame: At end of study (T2) at 2-hours
measure: Questionnaire
timeFrame: Change from start (T1) at 20 minute to end of training (T2) at 2 hours
measure: Questionnaire
timeFrame: Change from start (T1) at 20 minute to end of training (T2) at 2 hours
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Dallas
country: United States
facility: Childrens Health Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine (AYA) Clinic
state: Texas
city: Dallas
country: United States
facility: UT Southwestern Medical Center
state: Texas
Study officials:
affiliation: UTSouthwestern
name: Jenny KR Francis, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: