Family-focused psychosocial support for at-risk adolescents in Lebano

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Families identified as having medium to high protection risk, and an adolescent aged 12-17 years who scores above the clinical cut-off on a measure of psychological symptoms
Not Applicable

Registration Number: ISRCTN13751677

Lead Sponsor: American University of Beirut

Brief Summary: 2022 Protocol article in https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35436976/ (added 20/04/2022)

Detailed Description: Not available

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: Completed

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 351

Inclusion Criteria

1. A single- or dual-headed household with an adolescent aged 12-17 years (male and female)
2. Identified as at-risk by the partner organisation
3. Scoring above the cutoff on the Paediatric Symptom Scale for general psychological distress
4. Gives assent and parental/legal guardian consent

One target child will be identified per family for the assessments (if multiple children meet the criteria in one family, the child who has the highest PSC score will be selected as the index child). At-risk status will be established as part of usual screening processes for focused PSS and clinical assessment by facilitators in partner organizations, who will identify and refer potential participants. Medium-to-high risk is defined for this study as being ‘vulnerable to a protection risk but not high with imminent risk (i.e. without a current protection risk that would require immediate referral to case management).

Exclusion Criteria

1. Participants will be excluded if they require immediate case management at the time of recruitment, or if they have severe psychiatric disturbance or risks requiring specialist mental health services (assessed by partner organisations as part of usual routine assessment and referral systems)
2. Unaccompanied and separated minors, and children who are married, will not be included in the study, due to challenges with the legal consent of guardians
3. Families engaged in case management or in immediate need of case management at the time of outreach, will not be included. This is because those in case management are likely to be receiving sufficient other services. If the need for case management arises during the program then families can be referred as usual and still receive the program

Study & Design

Study Type: Interventional

Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Child-reported mental health and behavioural symptoms measured with the 35-item Pediatric Symptom Checklist at T0, T1, T2 (the primary comparison is change from T0 to T1 between groups)

Secondary Outcome Measures