Preventing Health Damaging Behaviors in Male and Female Army Recruits

August 24, 2017 updated by: Cherrie B. Boyer, PhD, United States Department of Defense
Health damaging (risk) behaviors of young military personnel are reflections of health problems facing all young people in the U.S. Military life presents opportunities and challenges that may both protect against and place young troops at risk for health damaging behaviors. Challenges for maintaining a healthy armed force include high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unintended pregnancies (UIPs), misuse of alcohol and other substances. The common thread through these negative health outcomes is volitional behavior. Such behaviors do not only result in illness or injury, but also negatively impact performance of military duties and threaten military readiness. Despite military leadership in setting standards and policies regarding professional behavior and universal health care for preventing and eliminating such negative health outcomes, many health problems remain. Building on our previous military research, we will evaluate the effectiveness a cognitive-behavioral, skills-building intervention to prevent and reduce young troops' risk for and acquisition of STIs and UIPs and will seek to reduce a number of their associated risk factors including, alcohol misuse, other substance use, and victimization due to IPV in male and female U.S. Army soldiers who are receiving Advance Individual Training (AIT) in Fort Jackson, SC.

Study Overview

Status

Terminated

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The primary hypotheses to be tested in this research are as follows. AIT soldiers participating in the experimental STI/UIP prevention intervention will: (a) have increased knowledge about the risk factors for and prevention of STIs, UIPs, alcohol and other substances, and intimate partner violence (IPV); (b) be more highly motivated to change risk behaviors associated with STIs and UIPs; (c) have higher levels of skills to prevent risk behaviors associated with STIs and UIPs and skills; (d) engage in more health promoting behaviors and fewer risk behaviors associated with STIs and UIPs, and (e) have fewer STIs and UIPs post-intervention compared with AIT solders who participate in a comparable control intervention focused on increasing healthy eating, maintaining physical fitness, and preventing fitness-related injuries.

The overall goal of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness a cognitive-behavioral skills-building intervention to prevent risk for and acquisition of STIs and UIPs and will seek to reduce a number of their associated risk factors including, alcohol misuse, other substance use, IPV in AIT soldiers. Specifically, we will evaluate whether AIT soldiers who participate in the experimental intervention entitled, Staying Safe and in Control: Increasing Knowledge and Building Skills to Prevent Sexually Transmitted Infections and Unintended Pregnancies will reduce their risk for and acquisition of STIs, UIPs and their associated sexual and substance use behaviors compared with AIT soldiers who undergo the control intervention entitled, Fit You: Practical Tools for Healthy Eating, Physical Fitness, and Injury Prevention. This intervention will focus primarily on promoting healthy eating, maintaining physical fitness, and preventing work-related and exercise injury.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

933

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
    • South Carolina
      • Columbia, South Carolina, United States, 29044
        • Fort Jackson Advance Individual Training Units

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

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • All participants will be 18 years of age or older, will be fluent in English, and able to provide written, informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • AIT soldiers under the age of 18 will be excluded since it will be difficult to obtain parental consent. We anticipate that this exclusion will be rare.

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: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Preventing sexual health risks
The over goal is to prevent STIs, unintended pregnancies, and related behaviors including sexual risk, alcohol and other substance misuse
Behavioral: Preventing Helath Damaging Health Behaviors in Male and Female Army Recruits
Groups will be randomly assigned to the sexual/substance use prevention intervention or the comparative/control intervention focused on impro risk Involves 10 hours of didactic presentations, interactive group discussions, skills-building exercises, and topic specific videos to reduce participants' risk for and acquisition of STIs, unintended pregnancies and their associated sexual and substance use behaviors.
Other: Improving nutrition, fitness and injury prevention
The goals are: (1) maintain and improve nutrition and physical fitness through healthier lifestyle and food choices; (2) reduce the risk of sports or physical training injuries and learning how to treat injuries; and (3) Learn to recognize stress and the steps you can take to reduce stress
Behavioral: Preventing Helath Damaging Health Behaviors in Male and Female Army Recruits
Groups will be randomly assigned to the sexual/substance use prevention intervention or the comparative/control intervention focused on impro risk Involves 10 hours of didactic presentations, interactive group discussions, skills-building exercises, and topic specific videos to reduce participants' risk for and acquisition of STIs, unintended pregnancies and their associated sexual and substance use behaviors.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Incidence of Sexually Transmitted Infections and the Self-reported Numbers of Unintended Pregnancies
Time Frame: 6 to 9 months
6 to 9 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Self-reported Behavioral Measures Related to STI/HIV Prevention
Time Frame: 6 to 9 months
6 to 9 months

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

United States Department of Defense

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Cherrie B Boyer, PhD, University of California, San Francisco

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

September 1, 2010

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2013

Study Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 3, 2010

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 3, 2010

First Posted (Estimate)

November 4, 2010

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 25, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 24, 2017

Last Verified

August 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • W81XWH-04-1-0159

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

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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