Effectiveness Trial of an mHealth Intervention to Help Parents Prevent Early Onset Alcohol Use (BIPAS Alcohol)

June 27, 2026 updated by: Nisha Gottfredson O'Shea, RTI International

Type I Hybrid Implementation Effectiveness Cluster Randomized Trial of an mHealth Intervention to Help Parents Prevent Early Onset Alcohol Use

Many parents are permissive about children's alcohol use (e.g., they allow sips of alcohol); this leniency increases the risk that children will experience serious alcohol-related consequences as they become teenagers. This promising digital intervention that teaches parents about their influence and provides skills and tools they need to discourage underage alcohol use.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Drinking before age 14, or "early-onset alcohol use" (EOAU), is a serious and highly prevalent risk behavior that often begins at home, with sips of alcohol provided by parents. By age 11, nearly one-quarter of U.S. children have already sipped alcohol. This research has identified specific parenting beliefs and behaviors that are not being adequately addressed in family-based interventions. This research shows that many parents who provide alcohol have the mistaken belief that doing so teaches children how to drink in moderation; other parents report simply not having given thought to the risks. Even in the context of other protective factors, adolescents whose parents had permissive beliefs about alcohol use exhibited quicker escalations in alcohol involvement across adolescence than did those whose parents had less permissive beliefs. The investigators developed and piloted an intervention program called Better Informed Parents Keeping Adolescents Safe from Alcohol (BIPAS Alcohol), which is a universal, theory-informed, digital intervention for parents of incoming middle schoolers that is delivered via mobile devices. Findings from the pilot study demonstrated that BIPAS is highly acceptable to parents and can be delivered at low cost. Furthermore, preliminary results show that BIPAS Alcohol is effective across a range of cognitive and behavioral outcomes, including parental provision of sips of alcohol to their children. Building on this research, the current application has the following aims. Aim 1: Expand the reach of BIPAS Alcohol by translating it into Spanish while maintaining fidelity to key intervention content; Aim 2: Use a rigorous national cluster-randomized trial with 2,000 parent-child dyads (N = 4,000 total) to assess the effects of BIPAS Alcohol on EOAU, secondary outcomes (e.g., children's alcohol use susceptibility), and hypothesized mediators that are the target of the intervention (e.g., parental permissive beliefs about adolescent alcohol use) relative to an attention control condition; and Aim 3: Evaluate implementation outcomes, including program reach, participant engagement and experience, and delivery cost. Aim 3 will include qualitative interviews to identify implementation supports that address factors that inhibit engagement. Across all aims, the investigators will examine variability in mechanisms and outcomes across multiple dimensions, including parent language, educational attainment, and alcohol use status. By rigorously testing the effectiveness of a universal digital intervention with the potential for widespread reach, this study will provide novel evidence for reducing EOAU and its associated consequences. Furthermore, findings regarding implementation supports for reaching families will provide insights into how best to support engagement more broadly across other digital parenting interventions.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

4000

Phase

  • Phase 3

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

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

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Be age 18 or older and
  • Be the parent or guardian of a child in or entering 5th or 6th grade
  • Cohabitate part-time (averaging at least 2 days/week) or more with index child
  • Consent to being randomized to study arm
  • Be able to complete study activities in Spanish or English
  • Own or have regular access to a smartphone that can download apps
  • Be willing to turn on app notifications for the study app
  • Consent to having their child complete surveys privately

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Another child from the same family/household is already participating

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: BIPAS Alcohol intervention group
BIPAS Alcohol intervention
Behavioral: BIPAS Alcohol
Digital intervention for parents of rising middle schoolers to prevent early onset alcohol use
Other Names:
  • BIPAS
No Intervention: Control group
Does not receive intervention

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Adolescent alcohol quantity frequency (AQF)
Time Frame: From enrollment to 24 months
Frequency and amount of drinking over the past 30 days
From enrollment to 24 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Parent alcohol attitudes and beliefs
Time Frame: From enrollment to 24 months
Questionnaire responses to items focusing on parent's beliefs about anticipated effects of alcohol consumption. Response options are: strongly agree; disagree; agree; and strongly agree.
From enrollment to 24 months
Parental allowance of sipping
Time Frame: From enrollment to 24 months
Questionnaire responses to item asking if parent allows child to sip alcohol. Response options are: never; rarely; sometimes; often; very often.
From enrollment to 24 months

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

RTI International

Collaborators

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Nisha Gottfredson O'Shea, PhD, RTI International

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 (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2029

Study Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2029

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 19, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 27, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

July 6, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 6, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 27, 2026

Last Verified

June 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • R01AA031980 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Primary outcome variables for individual participants will be shared on the NIMH Data Archive

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • ICF

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

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.

Clinical Trials on Alcohol Misuse

Clinical Trials on BIPAS Alcohol

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Mali

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

3
Subscribe