Randomized Control Trial of an Animal-Assisted Intervention With Adjudicated Youth

RCT of an Animal-Assisted Intervention With Adjudicated Youth

The project involves testing the efficacy of an animal-assisted intervention (AAI). The AAI consists of a 10-week program in which adjudicated adolescents train shelter dogs and will be compared to a dog walking control group matched for educational content and dog contact time. The investigators expect that the AAI will result in improved empathy skills and that dog attachment will explain these findings. The investigators also explore the extent to which the AAI will improve internalizing and externalizing symptoms in these adolescents.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Depression; Anxiety; Conduct Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Animal-assisted intervention

Detailed Description

Adjudicated adolescents (i.e., teens who have committed criminal offenses and are incarcerated in juvenile detention centers) have deficits in emotion regulation, including empathy skills, and are at risk for a host of poor outcomes including repeat offenses, internalizing symptoms (e.g., depression, anxiety), externalizing symptoms (e.g., lying, truancy, fighting). Many of these problems stem from a lack of secure attachment to parents and peers. There is a need for novel and innovative programs to help these teens develop more secure attachments and better empathy skills to prevent poor outcomes. One type of intervention is animal-assisted interventions such as dog training programs. These programs appear to build empathy skills in at-risk youth, which may translate into better peer relations, less psychological distress, and less recidivism. The goal of this study is to test an existing animal-assisted intervention program that is already being used in juvenile detention centers to determine whether it is efficacious in improving adjudicated adolescents' empathy skills and psychological symptoms through building a secure attachment to the training dog.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 150
• Phase: Phase 3

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Michigan
    • Mt. Clemens, Michigan, United States, 48043
      • Macomb County Juvenile Justice Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 14 years to 17 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• must be a resident of participating juvenile justice center in Michigan

Exclusion Criteria:

• none

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Animal-assisted; This group receives the dog training program in which they will be teaching a dog basic obedience skills.	Behavioral: Animal-assisted intervention; The experimental group will receive 10 weeks of classroom training and hands-on experience working with dogs to teach them basic obedience skills. Each participant will work with the same dog each week. The active control group will receive 10 weeks of classroom training and will walk a different dog each week but will not teach obedience skills to the dogs.
Active Comparator: Dog Walking; This group will walk a different dog each week but will not engage in dog training.	Behavioral: Animal-assisted intervention; The experimental group will receive 10 weeks of classroom training and hands-on experience working with dogs to teach them basic obedience skills. Each participant will work with the same dog each week. The active control group will receive 10 weeks of classroom training and will walk a different dog each week but will not teach obedience skills to the dogs.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms as measured by the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher Report and Youth Self Report forms	The Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist is a standardized measure of child behavior problems that assesses observers' and children's reports of the children's anxiety and depression (internalizing) and acting out (externalizing) behaviors.	baseline and 10 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in empathy toward other people	An observational measure was created for the purposes of this study in which a trained confederate acts as a potential student for the animal-assisted intervention. The confederate will express anxiety about the program and the participants' responses will be coded by trained raters for empathic content.	baseline and 10 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Wayne State University
• Collaborators: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Annmarie Cano, PhD, Wayne State University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: May 1, 2012
• Primary Completion (Actual): August 1, 2014
• Study Completion (Actual): June 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 4, 2012
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 8, 2012
• First Posted (Estimate): May 9, 2012

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): December 9, 2015
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 8, 2015
• Last Verified: December 1, 2015

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: empathy; Animal-assisted intervention; adjudicated adolescents
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Conduct Disorder
• Other Study ID Numbers: R03HD070621 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)