The Happy Families Project: Testing the Effectiveness of a Conflict Resolution Program for Families
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Parent-child intervention, Self-study Intervention.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Mental Health, Conflict. Basic parameters: from 4 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- United States
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Effectiveness of an Empirically Supported Family Intervention: Mental Health Outcomes, Mechanisms of Effect, and Organizational Factors
Overview
This study is designed to test the effectiveness of a psychoeducation-based program to address communication and conflict resolution in families, thereby supporting mental health in children and their caregivers.
Detailed description
The goal of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a program to improve mental health in families by reducing stress and supporting effective communication and conflict resolution.
Families will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: in the self-study condition, families will receive information to review on their own, paired with regular (weekly) contact from a family coach; in the second condition, families will receive information to review on their own, regular contact from a coach, and will participate in video sessions with a family coach who will provide feedback on their interactions and coaching on their use of a communication technique. Data collection, management and analysis will be conducted by researchers at the University of Notre Dame, but the intervention will occur through community organizations in three cities in Indiana, allowing for tests of the effectiveness of the program when it is implemented in community settings. Families will participate in a pre-test assessment, a four-week intervention, a post-test assessment, and a one-year follow up assessment. Also evaluated will be organizational factors and factors that impact ultimate implementation and scalability of the program in community settings.
Interventions
- Behavioral Parent-child intervention
Families (two adult caregivers, child between 4 and 17) receive four interactive, asynchronous psychoeducation modules to review on their own paired with weekly contact with a communication coach and two live sessions with a communication coach to discuss psychoeducation, receive feedback on their interactions, and practice a communication technique. - Behavioral Self-study Intervention
Families (two adult caregivers) receive information in a newsletter format to review on their own, paired with weekly contact from a communication coach to answer questions and direct their attention toward specific topics in the newsletter.
Primary outcome measures
- Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) [Time frame: 1 year]
- Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD) [Time frame: 1 year]
- Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) [Time frame: 1 year]
- Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) [Time frame: 1 year]
- O'Leary Porter Scale (OPS) [Time frame: 1 year]
- Family Interactions Coding Scale [Time frame: 1 year]
- Security in the Marital System Questionnaire (SIMS-PR) [Time frame: 1 year]
- Security in the Subsystem (SIS) [Time frame: 1 year]
- Security in the Family System (SIFS) [Time frame: 1 year]
- Organizational Characteristics Measure (purpose created measure of organizational characteristics) [Time frame: 4 years]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Two parents or primary caregivers
- Child between 4 and 17 years old
- English literate
- Able/willing to participate through the 12-month follow up assessment.
Exclusion criteria
- Families who cannot communicate in English
- Single parent families
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Single blind
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Study locations
United States · 3 centers
- Fort Wayne Center for Children and Families — Fort Wayne
- Indianapolis Virtual Site — Indianapolis
- University of Notre Dame — Notre Dame
Identifiers
NCT: NCT04980794 · 20-0852