Clinical trial NCT01862692: Web-based Parenting Intervention for Mothers of Infants At-Risk for Maltreatment (Baby-Net)
Official title: Web-based Parenting Intervention for Mothers of Infants At-Risk for Maltreatment
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Parenting
Lead sponsor: Oregon Research Institute
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2013-05-24
Enrollment: 222
Sex: FEMALE
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: This innovative interactive Internet-based parent education intervention will help serve to promote the social emotional development and communication skills of infants to decrease the chances of child maltreatment in low-income, culturally diverse, families.

Detailed description: Parents of infants living in poverty are at significantly elevated risk of a host of detrimental outcomes, including the development of child behavior problems, neglect and abuse of children, child learning problems and parental substance abuse. Research has found that early interventions to improve parenting practices were effective to ameliorate these outcomes. Yet, there exist major obstacles to the effective delivery of mental health services, particularly in rural areas. The need of rural families for mental health services is reaching crisis proportions due to the dearth of trained professionals. In addition, the meteoric rise of Internet use has created a new avenue for people to communicate and share ideas. These two trends are helping fuel the demand for mental health services and on-line support.

Internet programs can be interactive and provide social support from peers and professionals. Through the use of recent advances in multimedia technology and software as well as the rise of computer networking via the Internet, there now exists an opportunity to provide such monitoring of outcomes and remote contact for rural locations. Prior developmental R34 research ("Infant Net") successfully adapted and pilot tested an existing empirically proven parenting program, for delivery via the Internet, enhanced with weekly professional contact. This research provided 40 mothers of infants 3.5 to 7 months (at enrollment) with a computer, computer camera, Internet connection, and technical training/support for 6 months to evaluate the digital translation. Mother-infant dyads were randomized to Experimental or Computer/Control conditions. Results found significant change with infant-behavioral and positive trends were demonstrated in parenting behaviors. Mothers rated the both computer program and interaction with coaches to be very high. These encouraging developmental research results provide a very good empirical base for a fully powered randomized control trial to test effectiveness.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Female, 18+ years old
* Child age 3.5-7.5 months
* Eligible for Early Head Start
* Understand spoken English or Spanish

Exclusion Criteria:

* History of severe drug use or psychopathology

Primary outcomes:
measure: The Landry Parent-Child Interaction Scales (Parent Behavior)
timeFrame: 6 months post
Secondary outcomes:
measure: The Landry Parent-Child Interaction Scales (Infant Behavior)
timeFrame: 6 months (post)
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Kansas City
country: United States
facility: University of Kansas Center for Research
state: Kansas
city: Eugene
country: United States
facility: Oregon Research Institute
state: Oregon
Study officials:
affiliation: Oregon Research Institute
name: Ed G. Feil, Ph.D.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: