Effects of a Worksite Parenting Program

October 14, 2011 updated by: RAND

Talking Parents, Healthy Teens: A Worksite-Based Parenting Program for Parents of Adolescents

Many adolescents in the U.S., even very young adolescents, are engaging in sexual risk behaviors that put them at risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unintended pregnancy. Studies show that parents can play a significant role in promoting healthy sexual development and risk reduction among adolescents. The UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion has developed Talking Parents, Healthy Teens, a worksite-based parenting program for parents of adolescents (grades 6-10) to improve parent-adolescent communication and reduce adolescent sexual risk behaviors. We are evaluating the effectiveness of the program primarily with confidential surveys of the participants before and after the program.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Many adolescents in the U.S., even very young adolescents, are engaging in sexual risk behaviors that put them at risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unintended pregnancy. Studies show that parents can play a significant role in promoting healthy sexual development and risk reduction among adolescents. Parenting approaches such as engaging in open and responsive communication, providing appropriate levels of supervision, and keeping involved in children's lives are associated with better adolescent outcomes. However, many parents are uncertain about how to talk with their adolescents about sex. Worksites provide an untapped but promising setting in which to reach parents to help them develop parenting and communication skills.

The UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion has developed a worksite-based parenting program for parents of adolescents (grades 6-10) to improve parent-adolescent communication and reduce adolescent sexual risk behaviors. Specifically, the Center has developed Talking Parents, Healthy Teens for parents with adolescent children to teach communication skills as well as basic facts about sex and other important adolescent issues. The program aims to help parents understand adolescent development and the changes in adolescents' thoughts and feelings about sexual issues and other risk behaviors. It helps parents develop skills for discussing sensitive but important topics with their adolescents, and for teaching their adolescents decision-making and problem-solving skills. The program also emphasizes the importance of parents knowing what is going on in their adolescents' lives (often called parental monitoring). Although parents feel a need for help on such issues, they often tend to be too busy to attend ongoing programs. Therefore, we bring the program to them at their worksite. The program involves groups of about 12-15 parents who meet for an hour at lunch-time once a week for eight consecutive weeks. We serve a free lunch during the sessions.

We are evaluating the effectiveness of the Talking Parents, Healthy Teens program primarily with confidential surveys of the participants before and after the program. We also ask participants' adolescents (who are not in the parenting program) to fill out surveys as well. Among parents who initially express interest in the program, we randomize parents after they complete their baseline survey into an intervention group that takes the parenting program and a control group that does not. Both of these groups fill out confidential surveys over the course of several years. After the study has been conducted at a number of worksites, the research team will statistically compare survey answers for the two groups to see how well the program works. The results of the evaluation will be submitted for publication in academic journals.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

1252

Phase

  • 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 Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Santa Monica, California, United States, 90407
        • RAND

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

Ages Eligible for Study

11 years to 70 years (Child, Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Parents of adolescents in grades 6-10
  • Parents must spend at least two days per week with their adolescents
  • One parent per household/family

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: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Parent-child communication
Time Frame: 0, 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, & 45 months post-intervention
0, 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, & 45 months post-intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Parenting behaviors
Time Frame: 0, 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, & 45 months post-intervention
0, 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, & 45 months post-intervention
Adolescent health behaviors
Time Frame: 0, 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, & 45 months post-intervention
0, 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, & 45 months post-intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

RAND

Collaborators

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
University of California, Los Angeles

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Mark A. Schuster, MD, PhD, RAND and UCLA

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

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

April 1, 2002

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2009

Study Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2009

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 23, 2007

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 23, 2007

First Posted (Estimate)

April 24, 2007

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

October 18, 2011

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 14, 2011

Last Verified

October 1, 2011

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • R01MH061202 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

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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