Louisville Teen Pregnancy Prevention Project (CHAMPS)

Creating Healthy Adolescents Through Meaningful Prevention Services

This study is comparing the impact of two teen pregnancy prevention interventions, Reducing the Risk and Love Note with a non-related training on community building to determine which is most effective for which participants in delaying sexual initiation, enhancing use of condoms and other forms of birth control, decreasing sexually transmitted diseases and decreasing the number of pregnancies. The participants were 1450 youth between the ages of 14 and 19 including those from poor urban settings, those from immigrant and refugee families and those from the foster care system. Both girls and boys were be in the study. The investigators predict that girls, immigrants and refugees and foster youth will have better outcomes when participating in Love Notes, a program focused on healthy relationship formation and maintenance as a frame for how to manage the sexual aspect of relationships while boys and urban youth will have better outcomes when participating in Reducing the Risk. Both groups will have better outcomes than those in the control condition.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Sexually Transmitted Diseases; Pregnancy
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Reducing the Risk; Behavioral: Love Notes

Detailed Description

The purpose of this research is to conduct a randomized controlled trial with three groups to test the effectiveness of various interventions aimed at reducing risky behavior by teenagers. Two intervention groups will each receive a training intervention to reduce the chances of teen pregnancy, contraction of STIs, and abusive relationships among high risk youth in the Louisville community. The wait-list control group will receive training on the unrelated topic of community building at the same time. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), 50% of Kentucky high school students have participated in sexual intercourse, 37% report currently being sexually active, and 14% have reported having sexual intercourse with four or more sexual partners. Furthermore, only 41% of sexually active students reported using a condom the last time they had sex. These are risky sexual practices that may lead to HIV/STI infection, as well as unintended pregnancy, within the adolescent population. Understanding the pregnancy intentions of these adolescents is not only important with regards to adolescent pregnancy, but it is also important in light of HIV and STI infection when 6% of adolescents and young adults (<20 years of age) in Kentucky have been reported as HIV positive since 2009. As of January 2009, Kentucky ranked 42nd for teenage births (where 1 is best) with a teenage birth rate of 56 per 1,000 girls ages 15-19 years of age. Kentucky was only slightly above Mississippi, which ranked 50th with a teenage birth rate of 68.4 per 1,000. Kentucky's teenage birth rate is higher than the national rate which is currently 41.9 per 1,000 girls ages 15-19 years of age. The most recent Kentucky teen birth rates in 2007 show that Jefferson County (52.34 per 1,000 ages 15-19) exceeds the birth rate of the nation. To address these issues, 1450 Louisville youth were given the opportunity to participate in one of two intervention curricula: called Reducing the Risk and Love Notes, or a waiting list control condition.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1450
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Kentucky
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40203
      • Department for Community Based Services: Jefferson County Region
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40203
      • House of Ruth
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40203
      • Presbyterian Community Center
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40205
      • Jewish Family and Career Services
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40207
      • Gate of Hope Ministries
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40210
      • St George Community Center
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40212
      • Neighborhood House
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40212
      • One Plus One Equals You
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40214
      • Americana Community Center
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40218
      • Canaan Community Development Corporation
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40223
      • Maryhurst
    • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40259
      • The Steward's Staff

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 14 years to 19 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Parental Informed Consent for enrollment in the CHAMPS! CAMP and accompanying research sessions,
2. Personal assent for participation in the workshop and research sessions.
3. Age 14 to 19 years old ;
4. Affiliation with youth serving organizations, or part of a current foster youth or former foster youth alumni group.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Age 13 or younger, 20 or older;
2. Married
3. Inability to participate verbally in English;
4. Cognitive impairment that precludes the subject from giving assent or informed consent for any reason;
5. Refusal of consent to participate in the study by their parent.
6. Already pregnant or a parent, because we are attempting primary prevention.
7. Prior participation in a comparable local program, such as Love U2.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Reducing the Risk; Students will be randomly assigned to participate in Reducing the Risk training	Behavioral: Reducing the Risk; Reducing the Risk: Building Skills to Prevent Pregnancy, STD and HIV (RtR) was developed by Richard Barth, MSW, Ph.D. in California. The training manual is in its 5th Edition and was last published in 2011. This curriculum is one of the first that was evaluated using an experimental design, with a longitudinal follow up (6 months and 18 months) and tested on a large group of high school students (N = 758). It is also one of the first programs to show an impact on beliefs of adolescent sexual behavior prevalence and actual behavior as well as increasing parent-child communication about abstinence and contraception (Kirby, Barth, Leland, and Fetro, 1991).; Other Names: Comprehensive Sex Ed
Experimental: Love Notes; The second healthy relationships program for high-risk youth, Love Notes, was developed to educate participants about healthy relationships, including issues of decision-making, communication and conflict resolution, and overall safety, including the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (Pearson, 2009). Love Notes is a derivative of the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP; Stanley, Markman, & Jenkins, 2009), which is relationship marriage education program listed as an evidence-based practice (EBP) by SAMSHA (www.samhsa.gov).	Behavioral: Love Notes; The second healthy relationships program for high-risk youth, Love Notes, was developed to educate participants about healthy relationships, including issues of decision-making, communication and conflict resolution, and overall safety, including the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (Pearson, 2009). Love Notes is a derivative of the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP; Stanley, Markman, & Jenkins, 2009), which is relationship marriage education program listed as an evidence-based practice (EBP) by SAMSHA (www.samhsa.gov). This curriculum builds on social exchange theory and meets the needs of youth who are alienated and in need of loving personal relationships.; Other Names: Relationship Ed

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Pregnancy	Number of girls that get pregnant. Number of girls and times boys impregnate someone.	2 years

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
number and type of STIs contracted	Number of sexually transmitted infections participants contract	2 years

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Louisville
• Collaborators: Department of Health and Human Services
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Anita P Barbee, Ph.D., Kent School of Social Work University of Louisville

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Barbee AP, Cunningham MR, van Zyl MA, Antle BF, Langley CN. Impact of Two Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Interventions on Risky Sexual Behavior: A Three-Arm Cluster Randomized Control Trial. Am J Public Health. 2016 Sep;106(S1):S85-S90. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2016.303429.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: September 1, 2011
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 1, 2014
• Study Completion (Actual): April 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 4, 2011
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 5, 2011
• First Posted (Estimate): August 8, 2011

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 24, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 20, 2017
• Last Verified: April 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Teen Pregnancy Prevention
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pathologic Processes; Infections; Communicable Diseases; Disease Attributes; Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• Other Study ID Numbers: TP2AH000010-01-00