Promoting Co-Parenting and Reducing Hazardous Drinking in New Families

February 12, 2026 updated by: Rina D. Eiden, Penn State University

Strong Foundations: Intervening to Promote Co-Parenting and Reduce Father Hazardous Drinking in Expectant Parents

This study aims to understand if a parenting program that helps couples learn to parent as a team and maintain a healthy lifestyle, such as maintaining safer levels of alcohol use, promotes parent and child health and well-being. Programs will be delivered prenatally and postnatally and will include both group classes and individualized sessions. A comprehensive assessment is administered during pregnancy and then at 6 and 12 months of child age. It is hypothesized that targeting intervention during the naturally motivating transition to parenthood may not only provide opportunities for long lasting behavioral change for parents, but also initiate a cascade of protective processes that ultimately reduce risk for negative emotional and behavioral outcomes for children.

Study Overview

Status

Status

Indicates the current recruitment status or the expanded access status.
Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied. On ClinicalTrials.gov, conditions may also include other health-related issues, such as lifespan, quality of life, and health risks.

Intervention / Treatment

Intervention / Treatment

A process or action that is the focus of a clinical study. Interventions include drugs, medical devices, procedures, vaccines, and other products that are either investigational or already available. Interventions can also include noninvasive approaches, such as education or modifying diet and exercise.

Study Type

Study Type

Describes the nature of a clinical study. Study types include interventional studies (also called clinical trials), observational studies (including patient registries), and expanded access.
Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

Enrollment

The number of participants in a clinical study. The "anticipated" enrollment is the target number of participants that the researchers need for the study.
368

Phase

Phase

The stage of a clinical trial studying a drug or biological product, based on definitions developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The phase is based on the study's objective, the number of participants, and other characteristics. There are five phases: Early Phase 1 (formerly listed as Phase 0), Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, and Phase 4. Not Applicable is used to describe trials without FDA-defined phases, including trials of devices or behavioral interventions.
  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact

The name and contact information for the person who can answer enrollment questions for a clinical study. Each location where the study is being conducted may also have a specific contact, who may be better able to answer those questions.

Study Contact Backup

  • Name: Stephanie Godleski
  • Phone Number: 585-475-2643
  • Email: saggsh@rit.edu

Study Locations

  • United States
    • New York
      • Buffalo, New York, United States, 14260
        • University at Buffalo
      • Henrietta, New York, United States, 14467
        • Rochester Institute of Technology

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

The key requirements that people who want to participate in a clinical study must meet or the characteristics they must have. Eligibility criteria consist of both inclusion criteria (which are required for a person to participate in the study) and exclusion criteria (which prevent a person from participating). Types of eligibility criteria include whether a study accepts healthy volunteers, has age or age group requirements, or is limited by sex.

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Pregnant couples who are cohabitating
  • Parents are 18 years of age or older
  • Health behavior such as moderate to heavy drinking
  • English speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Plural pregnancy
  • Illicit drug use other than cannabis during pregnancy

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Participant Group / Arm

A group or subgroup of participants in a clinical trial that receives a specific intervention/treatment, or no intervention, according to the trial's protocol.
Intervention / Treatment

Intervention / Treatment

A process or action that is the focus of a clinical study. Interventions include drugs, medical devices, procedures, vaccines, and other products that are either investigational or already available. Interventions can also include noninvasive approaches, such as education or modifying diet and exercise.
Active Comparator: Healthy Foundations
A community-based parenting education program with individual family check ins will be implemented to all participants assigned to this arm.
Behavioral: Healthy Foundations
Healthy Foundations combines elements of a community-based parent education program with additional information about infant and child development, good parenting practices, parent health behavior, and couple support.
Experimental: Family Foundations
An adapted Family Foundations parenting program for expecting first time parents with individual family check ins will be implemented to all participants assigned to this arm.
Behavioral: Family Foundations
A modified version of Family Foundations, an evidence-based preventive intervention for couples during the transition to parenthood, will be implemented to address several aspects of parent and family adjustment, including parent health behavior, particularly alcohol use, and couple relationship dynamics, to promote a healthy parenting environment.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, the planned outcome measure that is the most important for evaluating the effect of an intervention/treatment. Most clinical studies have one primary outcome measure, but some have more than one.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Couple Relationship/Co-parenting
Time Frame: 6 months of child age
Couple relationship will be evaluated through the Co-parenting Relationship Scale. For overall coparenting quality, average responses range from 0 (not true of us/never) to 6 (very true of us/very often). Lower scores indicate worse outcomes.
6 months of child age
Parent Adjustment
Time Frame: 6 months of child age
Parent adjustment will be assessed with self-report on mental health screenings. The Brief Symptom Inventory is a widely used mental health screening measure. Average responses to the listed symptoms range from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely) based on how distressing symptoms have been. Higher scores indicate greater intensity of symptoms.
6 months of child age
Parent Alcohol Use
Time Frame: 6 months of child age
Quantity-frequency of alcohol use (Quantity Frequency Index) and frequency of binge drinking (4 or 5 or more on a single occasion) based on the NIAAA standard drink will be assessed. Higher scores indicate greater quantity and frequency of alcohol use and binge drinking, with moderate drinking being defined as up to 1 standard drink per day for women and up to 2 standard drinks per day for men.
6 months of child age

Secondary Outcome Measures

Secondary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, a planned outcome measure that is not as important as the primary outcome measure for evaluating the effect of an intervention but is still of interest. Most clinical studies have more than one secondary outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Parent-infant Interactions
Time Frame: 6 and 12 months of child age
Parent-child relations will be measured through the coding of play interaction sessions. Parental warmth, sensitivity, and harshness will be coded during parent-infant interactions. Parents will be asked to spend some time with their infants as they normally would at 6 months. At 12 months, parents will be asked to spend some time with infants as they normally would for the first 5 minutes, and given a series of problem-solving tasks to do with their infants for the next 5 minutes. Warmth (positive affective involvement), sensitivity (e.g., flexibility and contingent responsiveness), and harshness (e.g., intrusive and negative behaviors such as angry/hostile mood and voice, disapproval, and criticism) will be coded based on the global 5-point rating scales of the Early Relational Assessment (Clark, 1999). Higher scores on the rating scales indicate higher frequency of warmth, sensitivity, and harshness.
6 and 12 months of child age
Infant Self-Regulation
Time Frame: 6 and 12 months of child age
The Revised Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R, Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003) will be used to obtain parent reports of infant reactivity/regulation at 6 and 12 months of infant ages. The scale measures three broad dimensions of behavior Surgency/Extraversion, Negative Affectivity, and Orienting/Regulation. The Surgency/Extraversion dimension includes approach, vocal reactivity, high intensity pleasure, smiling and laughter, activity level, and perceptual sensitivity. The Negative Affectivity dimension includes sadness, distress to limitations, fear, and low falling reactivity. The Orienting/Regulation dimension includes low intensity pleasure, cuddliness, duration of orienting, and soothability. Scores range from 1-7 and higher scores on each dimension reflect higher surgency, negative affect, and regulation. Average of maternal and paternal scores on these three broad dimensions will be included as the final outcome measures.
6 and 12 months of child age

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Sponsor

The organization or person who initiates the study and who has authority and control over the study.
Penn State University

Collaborators

Collaborators

An organization other than the sponsor that provides support for a clinical study. This support may include activities related to funding, design, implementation, data analysis, or reporting.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
University at Buffalo
Rochester Institute of Technology

Investigators

Investigators

A researcher involved in a clinical study. Related terms include site principal investigator, site sub-investigator, study chair, study director, and study principal investigator.
  • Principal Investigator: Rina D Eiden, PhD, Penn State
  • Principal Investigator: Stephanie Godleski, PhD, Rochester Institute of Technology

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

Study Start

The actual date on which the first participant was enrolled in a clinical study. The "anticipated" study start date is the date that the researchers think will be the study start date.
January 25, 2021

Primary Completion (Actual)

Primary Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention to collect final data for the primary outcome measure. Whether the clinical study ended according to the protocol or was terminated does not affect this date. For clinical studies with more than one primary outcome measure with different completion dates, this term refers to the date on which data collection is completed for all the primary outcome measures. The "anticipated" primary completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the primary completion date for the study.
January 19, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

Study Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention/treatment to collect final data for the primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, and adverse events (that is, the last participant's last visit). The "anticipated" study completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the study completion date.
July 31, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

First Submitted

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submitted a study record to ClinicalTrials.gov. There is typically a delay of a few days between the first submitted date and the record's availability on ClinicalTrials.gov (the first posted date).
June 14, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submits a study record that is consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. The sponsor or investigator may need to revise and submit a study record one or more times before NLM's QC review criteria are met. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
June 18, 2020

First Posted (Actual)

First Posted

The date on which the study record was first available on ClinicalTrials.gov after National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review has concluded. There is typically a delay of a few days between the date the study sponsor or investigator submitted the study record and the first posted date.
June 22, 2020

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

Last Update Posted

The most recent date on which changes to a study record were made available on ClinicalTrials.gov. There may be a delay between when the changes were submitted to ClinicalTrials.gov by the study's sponsor or investigator (the last update submitted date) and the last update posted date.
February 17, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator submitted changes to a study record that are consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
February 12, 2026

Last Verified

Last Verified

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator confirmed the information about a clinical study on ClinicalTrials.gov as accurate and current. If a study with a recruitment status of recruiting; not yet recruiting; or active, not recruiting has not been confirmed within the past 2 years, the study's recruitment status is shown as unknown.
February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

Other Study ID Numbers

Identifiers or ID numbers other than the NCT number that are assigned to a clinical study by the study's sponsor, funders, or others. These numbers may include unique identifiers from other trial registries and National Institutes of Health grant numbers.
  • STUDY00003112
  • 7R01AA027708-02 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)
  • SITE00000607, (Other Identifier: Pennsylvania State University - Univ Park Local IRB Study ID)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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