Preventing Internalizing in Preadolescents Exposed to Chronic Stress

Preventing Internalizing Psychopathology in Preadolescents Exposed to Chronic Stress

Racial and socioeconomic disparities in physical and mental health problems are large, persistent, and severe; begin during childhood; and stem from in part damage to physiologic stress response systems caused by chronic stress. Discovery of ways to prevent and/or halt this progression of damage to a child's stress response system may offer new directions for combatting health disparities. This project will evaluate the efficacy of a new prevention program designed to teach preadolescent children effective ways for coping with chronic stress that will have direct effects on their physiologic stress response systems (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) and ultimately prevent onset of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms and disorders.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Depression; Anxiety; Chronic Stress
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Building a Strong Identity and Coping Skills

Detailed Description

Mental health problems disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minority populations, as well as populations that face chronic economic hardship. There is clear evidence that (1) the processes that lay the groundwork for mental health disparities is laid during childhood and (2) that damage to and dysregulation of the physiologic stress response is a powerful mechanism of the effects of chronic stress such as that associated with poverty on psychopathology. To contribute solutions to mental health disparities, interventions need to be capable of affecting the systems that confer the risk. Since the psychobiologic stress response system (e.g., hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis; HPA) is a central mechanism linking health disparities to chronic stress, the stress response is a critical system to target. Improving children's ability to cope with stress and regulate their reactivity has the potential to break the cycle of damage, especially if the coping strategies and regulatory processes that we target have effects at the physiologic level. New evidence has emerged showing that different types of coping are evident at the level of the HPA-it is, therefore, time to evaluate whether a coping intervention designed for children facing chronic stress will both (a) improve children's ability to use primary and secondary control coping, and (b) have sustained effects at the physiologic level. The BaSICS intervention is designed to address core underlying mechanisms of risk and repair in the highly stressful context of poor, urban youths' lives.

Preadolescence is a crucial time during which children's ability to recognize stress and its causes matures, and repertoires for coping with stress grow in both size and complexity. In addition, preadolescence is a time of increased brain changes and growth in key self-regulatory organs and systems. Preadolescents are, therefore, at a ripe stage to benefit from coping-based prevention and the plasticity of this developmental period suggests that such changes have the potential to be long-lasting. BaSICS is designed to prevent the onset of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms in preadolescent children facing chronic stress. Two mechanisms of action are targeted in this project. First, the project seeks to demonstrate that children facing chronic stress stemming from poverty, discrimination, and violence exposure can acquire and utilize new ways of coping that are adaptive in a wide variety of circumstances. Second, the project will examine the extent to which improved coping resulting from the intervention engages the physiologic intermediate mechanism of the HPA. Finally, the project aims to link changes in coping and the HPA to changes in internalizing symptoms that would signal prevention of the emergence of new or worsening of existing symptoms. Discovery of ways to prevent and/or halt this progression of damage to a child's stress response system that leads to psychopathology can offer new directions for combatting health disparities.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 105
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, 17104
      • Hamilton Health Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 11 years to 12 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Child age 11 or 12 at intake
• Family income at or below 200% Federal Poverty Level
• Child speaks English
• Parent speaks English or Spanish

Exclusion Criteria:

• Intellectual disability
• Autism diagnosis
• Exceeds clinical cutoff for anxiety or depressive disorder

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: BaSICS Intervention; Intervention = Building a String Identity and Coping Skills (BaSICS). Children randomized to participate in 16 twice weekly BaSICS intervention sessions. Children learn coping skills, identity development, and collective action as ways to buffer against chronic stress. These children also complete pre- and post-intervention assessments, as well as 3-month and 12-month follow-up assessments.	Behavioral: Building a Strong Identity and Coping Skills; Psychoeducational program to teach children coping skills, healthy identity development, and collective social action.; Other Names: BaSICS
No Intervention: Comparison; These children complete assessments only--timed to coincide with the intervention groups' assessments: pre- and post-intervention assessments, as well as 3-month and 12-month follow-up assessments. No intervention.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
HPA Reactivity Profile	Changes in levels of salivary cortisol across a 90 minute Trier Social Stress Test protocol	Pre-post (3 months) and Pre-follow-up (6 and 12 months)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Internalizing symptoms	Reductions in total internalizing symptoms reported by parents on the CHild Behavior Checklist	Pre-follow-up (6 and 12 months)
Coping Skills Acquisition	Changes in the number of coping skills that children can report during the Coping Skills interview protocol.	pre-post (3 months) and Pre-follow-up (6 and 12 months)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Penn State University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Martha E Wadsworth, Ph.D., Penn State University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: April 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): January 1, 2025
• Study Completion (Actual): January 1, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 26, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 3, 2016
• First Posted (Estimated): May 6, 2016

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 23, 2025
• Last Verified: January 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: poverty; discrimination
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Depression
• Other Study ID Numbers: R33MH107631 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: National Data Archives