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Family-Focused Therapy for Individuals at High Clinical Risk for Psychosis: A Confirmatory Efficacy Trial
Sponsor: University of California, Los Angeles
Summary
The present study is a confirmatory efficacy trial of Family Focused Therapy for youth at clinical high risk for psychosis (FFT-CHR). This trial is sponsored by seven mature CHR clinical research programs from the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS). The young clinical high risk sample (N = 220 youth ages 13-25) is to be followed at 6-month intervals for 18 months.
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
13 Years - 25 Years
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
220
Start Date
2021-01-15
Completion Date
2026-12-31
Last Updated
2026-01-26
Healthy Volunteers
No
Interventions
Family Focused Therapy for Clinical High Risk Youth (FFT-CHR)
Family-Focused Therapy (FFT) has been tested in randomized trials involving persons with bipolar disorder, depression, and clinical high-risk syndromes. FFT-CHR provides families with psychoeducation (sessions 1-6) about prodromal symptoms and the role of the family in helping maintain stability. Clients are supported in building coping skills and monitoring thoughts, perceptions, and mood. The family formulates a prevention action plan to prevent prodromal symptoms from escalating into full episodes. Communication training (sessions 7-13) teaches families to express positive and negative feelings, listen actively, make positive requests for change, and communicate clearly through role-playing and between-session practice. In problem solving (sessions 14-18) participants learn to break down problems into smaller ones, evaluate pros/cons, and choose solutions to implement.
Enhanced Care (EC)
Enhanced care (EC) has been tested as a family educational treatment in CHR and bipolar youth. The first 3 sessions of EC involve the CHR person and family (parents, siblings) and cover the same content as the psychoeducational module of FFT in abridged form. The objective of these sessions is to develop a prevention action plan. Then, the CHR person is offered monthly individual sessions with the same clinician over the next 5 months, for a total of 8 sessions over 6 months. The individual sessions focus on applying the prevention action plan when symptoms emerge, and supportive, nondirective problem-solving regarding areas of conflict with family, with peers or in the educational or occupational arena. The clinician also serves as case manager.
Locations (7)
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California, United States
University of California, San Diego
San Diego, California, United States
University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
San Francisco, California, United States
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Harvard University/Beth Israel Deconess Medical Center
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Zucker Hillside Hospital
New York, New York, United States
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada