Clinical trial NCT03583645: The Effect of an Intervention Based on Implicit Theories of Personality on the Prevention of Adolescent Dating Violence
Official title: Prevention of Aggressive Behavior in Adolescents by Means of an Intervention Based on Implicit Theories of Personality
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Dating Violence
Keywords: Adolescence
Prevention
Aggressive behavior
Dating Violence
Lead sponsor: University of Deusto
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Medikosta IMQ Análisis Clínicos
First posted: 2018-07-11
Enrollment: 402
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 13
Maximum age (years): 18
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Participants were randomized in a 1:1 ratio blocked by gender to one of two groups: experimental condition (ITP intervention) versus control condition (educational intervention) in parallel for the duration of the study.
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: This study evaluates the efficacy of an intervention based on the Implicit Theories of Personality (ITP) to prevent dating violence in Spanish adolescents. Half of participants received the ITP intervention, while the other half received an educational intervention.

Detailed description: Intimate partner violence is a problem arising in adolescence, which causes severe suffering. Since the first romantic relationships are established during adolescence, implementation of preventive interventions during this developmental stage opens a window of opportunity for the prevention of partner aggression. Previous prevention programs have shown efficacy in modifying cognitions and attitudes related to dating violence, although behavioral changes have been reported in very few cases. Recent innovative brief interventions based on changing entity theories of personality (i.e., the belief that people cannot change and personal characteristics are fixed; Miu \& Yeager, 2015) have provided good results for preventing depression and other behavioral problems in adolescents. Therefore, the principal aim of this study is to examine whether a brief one-hour intervention based on promoting the idea that people can change shows efficacy in the prevention of perpetration and victimization of dating aggressive behaviors (both online -cyber dating abuse- and traditional -face-to-face dating aggression-) in adolescents. Additionally, other objective of the project is to examine whether gender moderates the effects of the intervention in changes in dating violence. The study involves the evaluation of the intervention in a sample of around 400 adolescents (13-18 years), randomly allocated to experimental and control conditions. It is a field experiment conducted in high schools and involves multiple measures over time (self-reports and parent reports). In summary, the project aims to respond to the challenge of health and wellness in the population through a randomized controlled trial with multiple sources of measure and from a biopsychosocial perspective. The ITP intervention has the potential to become a universal intervention to help reduce the rates of adolescent dating violence.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Informed consent by the adolescents and their parents.
* To be fluent in Spanish.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change from baseline scores of the Dating Violence Questionaire (developed by the research team) at 2 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months.
timeFrame: Baseline, 2 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months.
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
measure: Affection and Communication subscale of the Parenting Style Scale (Oliva, Parra, Sanchez-Queija, & López, 2007) for parents.
timeFrame: Baseline and 6 months.
Locations:
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Deusto
name: Esther Calvete, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: