Parent-child Communication and Health-risk Behavior

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Parent-Child Relations

• Registration Number: NCT02330666
• Lead Sponsor: University of Wisconsin, Madison

Brief Summary

Engaging in health-risk behaviors such as tobacco and alcohol use put youth at risk for health problems that may compromise their futures and are extremely costly to society. Positive parent-child communication, characterized by openness, satisfaction with the family, caring, and effective problem-solving, has been found to be protective against a youth's involvement in health-risk behaviors. To promote positive adult-youth communication, in earlier work we developed, tested, and found efficacious an intervention, Mission Possible: Parents and Kids Who Listen (MP). This study is designed to test the following hypotheses: (a) Adults and youth who participate in MP will demonstrate more positive communication when compared with adults who did not participate; (b) Youth who participate in MP will have a lower incidence of health-risk behavior when compared with youth who did not participate; and (c) Positive adult-youth communication will mediate childhood health-risk behavior in the presence of risk processes that predict participation. The experimental design is a 2-group (intervention and comparison) pre-test repeated measures design with six waves of data collection over three years and two booster sessions of the intervention. Elementary school and community centers in Madison and Chicago served as recruitment sites for parent-child dyads.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2004-08
• Primary Completion: 2010-02
• Study Completion: 2010-12
• Study First Submitted: 2014-12-30
• Study First Submitted QC: 2014-12-31
• Study First Posted: 2015-01-05
• Status Verified: 2015-09
• Last Update Submitted: 2015-09-30
• Last Update Posted: 2015-10-02

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 604

Inclusion Criteria

• Adults and youth must be English speakers
• Youth must be 10 years old

Exclusion Criteria

• Severe mental or physical illness that could preclude involvement in data collection procedures
• Family plans to move from the metropolitan areas prior to study completion

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Youth Health Risk Behavior	3 years	Measured with the 22-item Children's Health Risk Behavior Scale (CHRBS). This instrument, based on the conceptual categories of the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance Survey, assesses potential for unintentional and intentional injury or violence, tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual curiosity, and health practices.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Openness of Communication	3 years	The Parent Adolescent Communication Inventory (Olson, 1983) is a 20-item, 2-subscale (open or problem communication) self-report instrument with a youth version and an adult version, the difference being the target of the item - mother/father or youth. Scores are computed for adult communication, youth-mother communication, youth-father communication.
Family Satisfaction	3 years	The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale III is a 20-item, self-report instrument (Olson, 1994) to measure family satisfaction. Participants answer the items twice, first to assess current and then to assess ideal family system conditions. The difference between ideal and perceived conditions yields a family satisfaction score.
Problem-Solving Skill	3 years	50% of the dyads were randomly selected for assessment of problem solving ability. The procedure was to (a) identify a problem for discussion from the Issues Checklist (IC), (b) videotape the dyad attempting to solve the problem identified, and (c) code the videotaped interaction using the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales (IFIRS). The IFIRS is a macro-level observational coding system that was initially developed in 1989 and has undergone 5 revisions. Scales used to assess three aspects of family interaction were: (a) individual behavioral characteristics or each person's generalized interaction consisting of 8 items, e.g., use of humor, mood, whining and complaining; (b) dyadic behavioral characteristics or the nature of behavior exchanged from one family member to another consisting of 22 items, e.g., hostility, warmth/support; and (c) the family problem-solving process consisting of 10 items, e.g., solution quality, family enjoyment.