Project Raising Exposure Awareness for Caregiver Help-Seeking (Project REACH)

A Direct-to-consumer Dissemination Campaign About Exposure to Increase Treatment Access

The goal of this pilot randomized study is to learn whether a dissemination campaign co-designed with a community advisory board helps caregivers of children with anxiety and related disorders seek exposure therapy, compared with standard information. Participants are caregivers of children ages 4 to 18 with current anxiety, OCD, or traumatic stress symptoms.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

Does the dissemination campaign improve caregivers' knowledge of exposure therapy, attitudes toward it, perceived norms about seeking it, and confidence that they can find an exposure therapist, compared with dissemination-as-usual?

Does the dissemination campaign increase caregivers' intentions to seek exposure therapy for their child, compared with dissemination-as-usual?

Researchers will compare the dissemination campaign to dissemination-as-usual, which is links to professional organization websites and advice to contact their insurance company or search an online therapist directory.

Participants will:

• Complete an online survey about their help-seeking intentions, knowledge, attitudes, norms, and confidence
• Be randomly assigned to review either the dissemination campaign or dissemination-as-usual materials for at least 10 minutes
• Complete the same survey again right after reviewing the materials
• Possibly be invited to a 15-minute phone interview 2 months later about whether they sought treatment for their child and what barriers they faced

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Anxiety; Trauma and Stress Related Disorders; Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Tailored Dissemination Campaign; Behavioral: Dissemination-as-usual

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 100
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Hannah E Frank, PhD; Phone Number: 401-444-1941; Email: hannah_frank@brown.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

Adult (age 18 or older) parent or other family caregiver Has a child aged 4 to 18 years with current symptoms of anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and/or traumatic stress, by caregiver report Able to read and understand English Able to provide informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

Survey responses flagged as likely invalid or inaccurate during data screening, including uniform responding or duplicate or suspicious IP addresses Previous participation in this study

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Tailored Dissemination Campaign; Caregivers are randomized to review the community advisory board-designed dissemination campaign, including flyers, infographics, testimonial videos, and explainer video.	Behavioral: Tailored Dissemination Campaign; A direct-to-consumer dissemination campaign about exposure therapy for youth anxiety and related disorders, co-designed with a community advisory board of family caregivers and providers and refined through caregiver focus groups. It covers the same core content as standard information about finding mental health care, but uses terminology and explanations developed with the advisory board. It also includes a skills-focused "how-to" guide for finding and accessing an exposure therapist. The campaign targets help-seeking mechanisms from the Theory of Planned Behavior: knowledge, attitudes, perceived norms, and self-efficacy. Participants review the materials online for at least 10 minutes.
Active Comparator: Dissemination-as-usual; Caregivers are randomized to review standard information about finding mental health services for their child (e.g., information found via google and foundation websites)	Behavioral: Dissemination-as-usual; Standard information about seeking mental health care for a child: links to professional organization websites and summary of information generated from Google searches. Participants review the materials online for at least 10 minutes.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Caregiver Self-Efficacy for Seeking Exposure Therapy	Self-efficacy for finding an exposure therapist for one's child, measured with two caregiver-report items rated on a 7-point agreement scale (e.g., "If I really wanted to, I could find an exposure specialist for my child"). The items are averaged into a score from 1 to 7, and higher scores indicate greater self-efficacy. Groups will be compared on the post-review score, controlling for baseline.	Baseline (pre-review) and immediately post-review (same study session)
Caregiver Attitudes Toward Exposure Therapy	Attitudes toward exposure therapy, measured with four standard semantic differential scales. The total score is the average of z-standardized items, and higher scores indicate more favorable attitudes. Groups will be compared on the post-review score, controlling for baseline.	Baseline (pre-review) and immediately post-review (same study session)
Perceived Norms for Seeking Exposure Therapy	Perceived norms about seeking exposure therapy, measured with two items rated on a 7-point agreement scale. One asks whether "other caregivers like me" would seek exposure therapy, and the other asks whether people important to the caregiver would approve. The items are averaged into a score from 1 to 7, and higher scores indicate more favorable perceived norms. Groups will be compared on the post-review score, controlling for baseline.	Baseline (pre-review) and immediately post-review (same study session)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Caregiver Intentions to Seek Exposure Therapy	Strength of caregivers' intentions to seek exposure therapy for their child, measured with two items rated on a 7-point scale: how willing and how likely the caregiver is to seek exposure therapy. The items are averaged into a score from 1 to 7, and higher scores indicate stronger intentions. Groups will be compared on the post-review score, controlling for baseline.	Baseline (pre-review) and immediately post-review (same study session)
Caregiver Knowledge of Exposure Therapy	Caregiver awareness of and prior experience with exposure therapy, measured with a previously developed two-item measure. Groups will be compared on the post-review score, controlling for baseline.	Baseline (pre-review) and immediately post-review (same study session)
Acceptability of Dissemination Strategies	Caregiver ratings of the acceptability of each dissemination strategy developed with the community advisory board.	Immediately post-review (same study session)
Caregiver-Reported Connection to Mental Health Services	Number of caregivers in a purposive subsample (n=32; 16 per arm, selected for high or low baseline intentions) who report successfully connecting their child with mental health services, and the type of treatment sought (including exposure therapy). This is assessed in a 15-minute structured phone interview. Reported barriers to accessing care and the influence of study materials on help-seeking will be analyzed qualitatively with rapid qualitative analysis, using codes from the Theory of Planned Behavior.	2 months post-review

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Brown University
• Collaborators: National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): January 15, 2027
• Primary Completion (Estimated): June 15, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 5, 2026
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 5, 2026
• First Posted (Actual): November 10, 2026

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 10, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 5, 2026
• Last Verified: November 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Trauma and Stressor Related Disorders; Anxiety Disorders; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Other Study ID Numbers: STUDY00000708; U54GM115677 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

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

IPD Plan Description

De-identified individual participant data from the quantitative surveys will be shared, including baseline and post-review measures of help-seeking intentions, knowledge, attitudes, perceived norms, self-efficacy, and acceptability, along with de-identified demographic and child symptom data. Qualitative interview transcripts will not be shared, to protect participant confidentiality.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

Data will be available beginning 6 months after publication of the primary results and for at least 3 years after that.

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

Data will be available to qualified researchers who submit a methodologically sound proposal to the study PI and sign a data use agreement

• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP; 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