Clinical Research Directory

The PANTHERS (Parents and iNfants Together in Home-based Early Remote Services) Project

The PANTHERS (Parents And iNfants Together in Home-based Early Remote Services) Projects is a study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to evaluate the efficacy and maintenance of a remote home-based preventive intervention, the Infant Behavior Program (IBP), to decrease behavior problems in infants from high-risk families. All families will participate in five remote evaluations in their home, and families will also receive 6 remote treatment sessions of either the IBP or the EPPC. All participant procedures will be conducted remotely.

Troubled-Desire & Therapeutic Chat for Reduction of CSAM Use (TD-CHAT)

The goal of this prospective multicentred, stratified, parallel-group superiority study is to prevent and reduce the usage of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) by a Therapist Chat Service (TCS) and Selfhelp Platform for Self-Referred Patients, mostly men with a sexual interest in children. The interventions are based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principles and designed to treat the sexual behavioral disorder related with CSAM consumption. 1. Participants in the Selfhelp modules group will show a statistically significantly higher proportion of reduction in CSAM behaviours four weeks after baseline, as compared to participants in the waitlist control group. 2. Participants in the Selfhelp modules followed by TCS group will show a statistically significantly higher reduction of CSAM behaviours compared to participants in the Selfhelp-only and TCS-only groups, post-intervention. Researchers will compare TCS-only-, Selfhelp-only-, Selfhelp + TCS- and Waiting group to see if if the interventions decrease CSAM use and improve mental well-being. Participants will get web based selfhelp-modules and/or text-based chat intervention operated by trained therapists.

SBIR/ STTR Family Check-up Online

The Family Check-Up Online, a digital health intervention, was designed to improve child mental health through family-centered intervention. The Family Check-Up is grounded in over 25 years of evidence-based research and has been shown to improve child mental health and behavior including depression and conduct problems. The investigators were supported by an SBIR Phase I award (R43MH132191) to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the digital health product in schools and to adapt the product based on findings of that work. Findings from that project suggested the model is a good fit for schools, with school providers stating a need for family-centered interventions that target child behavior and mental health, but with few resources or evidence-based programs available. The research team received feedback that suggests the model should be evaluated as both an uncoached version and coached version, delivered with provider support. In the current project, the investigators plan to continue work in schools to develop the model for commercialization, including understanding the process for embedding the FCU Online into current student support systems and implementation factors that lead to maintenance of the model in schools. The investigators plan to conduct a hybrid type 2 effectiveness-implementation trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the FCU Online when delivered by real world providers. Thirty providers (N=600 students/families) will be randomly assigned to receive training in the FCU Online coached vs. uncoached models. The research team will then evaluate outcomes including family relationships, parenting skills, and child mental health and behavior. The investigators predict that the FCU Online will improve child mental health and behavior, and will test for moderators such as provider training and child baseline risk. Findings will have implications for commercialization of the product in schools and implementation of the model in a range of different school settings.

Power of Growth - Digitally Assisted Intervention for the Early Childhood Educators' Self-efficacy Teamwork and Children's Behavioral Challenges.

This is an RCT study investigating the efficacy of digital intervention focusing on enhancing positive directing skills for teams of early childhood education (ECE) professionals. The aims are to study 1) changes in the ECEs' self-assessed self-efficacy experience in the intervention group compared to the control group; 2) changes in the behavioral challenges of the children in the ECEs' groups assessed by the parents in the intervention group compared to the control group; and 3) changes in the ECEs' guidance methods in the intervention group compared to the control group. We will also study changes in the wellbeing of ECEs and teamwork in both treatment groups. The sample size will consist of approximately 64 teams of ECEs. Hence, altogether there will be approximately 200 study subjects. The intervention is aimed at ECE teams and its goal is to strengthen and unify the team positive guidance practices in children's groups. The intervention includes self-learning material and teams online coaching in which the entire team participates simultaneously. The self-material includes 360 videos of everyday situations in the daycare and videos can be watched with VR glasses. The participants practice the skills systematically with their group of children. The duration of the intervention is approximately 12 weeks and team coaching are carried out approximately every two weeks.

Postoperative Behavioral Changes in Children.

In children scheduled for dental treatment, negative thoughts can lead to anxiety and make them resistant to treatment techniques. In our prospective, single-center observational study, we aim to investigate preoperative anxiety and postoperative negative behaviors in children aged 3 to 12 years who are set to undergo general anesthesia for dental conditions and treatments.

A Randomized Controlled Trial on Brief Behavioral Parent Training

RATIONALE: The access to and uptake of evidence-based behavioral parent training for children with behavioral difficulties (i.e., oppositional, defiant, aggressive, hyperactive, impulsive, and inattentive behavior) are currently limited because of a scarcity of certified therapists and long waiting lists. These problems are in part due to the long and sometimes perceived as rigid nature of most evidence-based programs and result in few families starting behavioral parent training and high dropout rates. Brief and individually tailored parenting interventions may reduce these problems and make behavioral parent training more accessible. OBJECTIVES: This project aims to increase the effective use of parent training for children with behavioral difficulties by (1) examining short and longer-term effectiveness of a new, brief, individual, and individually-tailored parent training program with optional booster sessions to prevent relapse, compared to care as usual (CAU); (2) assessing the cost-effectiveness of the brief parent training program compared to CAU. STUDY DESIGN: In this two-arm, multi-center randomized controlled trial (RCT), parents are randomly assigned (1:1 ratio) to either (a) three sessions of brief behavioral parent training with optional booster sessions, or (b) CAU, as regularly provided by the involved mental healthcare centers. The study outcomes are measured at baseline before randomization (T0), one week after the third session for parents in the brief behavioral parent training arm and eight weeks after T0 for parents in the CAU arm (first posttreatment measurement, T1), six months after T1 (second posttreatment measurement, T2) and twelve months after T1 (third posttreatment measurement, T3). STUDY POPULATION: Parents of children who experience behavioral difficulties in the home setting and were referred to a child mental healthcare center. INTERVENTION: Parents in the intervention arm receive a short, individualized, three-session training primarily aimed at reducing children's behavioral problems. It exists of two (bi)weekly individually tailored training sessions of two hours and a third session of one hour in which the training will be evaluated, and maintenance training will be provided. After that, parents wishing to receive additional support can receive single booster sessions maximum once every four weeks and/or receive care as usual. Parents in the control arm receive care as usual for children's behavioral problems. The treatments in both arms are fully embedded in Dutch routine mental health care. MAIN STUDY PARAMETERS: The primary outcome is the severity of four individual target behavioral difficulties that parents want to address in the training. Secondary outcomes are parent-reported behavioral difficulties, parent-reported child well-being, parent-reported parenting behaviors, masked audio records of mealtime routines to measure parent and child behavior, parent-reported parenting stress, parent-reported parenting self-efficacy, parent-reported parental attitude towards their child, consumption and cost of mental health care, and health state utility values. We furthermore measure evaluations of the program by parents and therapists and explore whether parental attachment, parental psychopathology, parental reward responsivity, parent-reported child reward responsivity and punishment sensitivity moderate the intervention effects.