Adaptation Processes in School-Based Substance Abuse Programs

April 18, 2017 updated by: Michael L. Hecht, Penn State University

The goals of this study are to develop a middle school substance use prevention curriculum for underserved rural youth and evaluate its efficacy compared to the existing, multicultural curriculum. In addition, we are studying how the curricula get taught by the teachers.

Hypothesis 1: When compared to students in the control condition, students in the treatment conditions will report less substance use, more conservative norms, less positive expectations about substance use outcomes, and better life and communication skills.

Hypothesis 2: When compared to students in the control condition, students in the researcher adaptation condition will report less substance use, more conservative norms, less positive expectations, and better life and communication skills.

Hypothesis 3: When compared to students in the control condition, students in the teacher adaptation condition will report less substance use, more conservative norms, less positive expectations, and better life and communication skills.

Hypothesis 4: Researcher adaptation will have a greater impact on substance use, norms, and expectations than teacher adaptation.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The goals of the proposed study are to conduct an effectiveness trial of the keepin' it REAL middle school substance use prevention curriculum among a new target audience in rural Pennsylvania and Ohio, describe how teachers adapt the curriculum when they present it, and develop, implement, and evaluate a Pennsylvania/Ohio-version of the curriculum to test whether an evidence-based universal curriculum can be improved by adapting it to local cultures. keepin' it REAL is recognized as a "model program" by SAMHSA's National Registry of Effective programs and is one of the few that are multicultural. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of the original curriculum, grounded in the cultures of the southwest and compare that to a new version, "regrounded" in the rural culture of Pennsylvania and Ohio, while studying how teachers adapt both versions. This proposal responds to NIDA PA-05-118, Drug Abuse Prevention Intervention Research that calls for investigations addressing, "1) the development of novel drug abuse prevention approaches; 2) the efficacy and effectiveness of newly developed and/or modified prevention programs; 3) the processes associated with the selection, adoption, adaptation, implementation, sustainability, and financing of empirically validated interventions." This proposal addresses all three points.

A randomized control trial will be conducted in middle schools to accomplish these goals. First, formative research will be conducted to develop a rural Pennsylvania/Ohio-version of the curriculum. Second, 42 rural schools will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: teacher adaptation in which the original keepin' it REAL curriculum is implemented; researcher adaptation in which a new Pennsylvania-version of the curriculum is implemented, and a control group. We hypothesized the participation in either form of the curriculum will reduce drug use and that the researcher adaptation will produce better outcomes and less teacher adaptation than the teacher adaptation. A pretest will be administered followed by posttests in 7-9th grades. Adaptation and fidelity will be measured in 3 ways: teachers completing a Program Quality and Adaptation online measure after each lesson, videotaped lessons, and attendance. The major hypothesis tests will be conducted using variants of the general linear model, taking into account the multilevel structure of the data (e.g., multilevel multiple regression), test of a mediation model, and growth modeling.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

2827

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
    • Pennsylvania
      • University Park, Pennsylvania, United States, 16802
        • Department of Communication Arts & Sciences, Penn State University

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 15 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Any student enrolled in treatment or control classes

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Students not enrolled in treatment or control classes

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: Rural curriculum
Receive rural version of curriculum
Other: Rural curriculum
Students in schools randomly assigned to this condition receive the rural version of the curriculum.
Experimental: Classic curriculum
Receive classic version of curriculum
Other: Classic curriculum
Students in schools randomly assigned to this condition receive the classic version of the curriculum.
No Intervention: Control
Continue normal prevention activities

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in substance use
Time Frame: Between the beginning of 7th grade and the end of 9th grade
Self report measure
Between the beginning of 7th grade and the end of 9th grade

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Penn State University

Collaborators

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Ohio State University

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Michael L Hecht, PhD, Penn State University

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

February 1, 2008

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2012

Study Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2012

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 21, 2012

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 21, 2012

First Posted (Estimate)

December 24, 2012

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 20, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 18, 2017

Last Verified

April 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • DESPR DA021670
  • R01DA021670 (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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