Effects of a brief, parent-focused intervention for substance using adolescents and their sibling

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Family Check-up (FCU), a parent-focused brief motivational intervention, in families where parents were concerned about one adolescent’s alcohol or marijuana use and the referred adolescent also had a sibling close in age. The primary goal of the FCU was to provide individualized feedback on specific parenting skills, including monitoring and supervision, limit setting, and alcohol-related communication. A total of 92 adolescents (37 female) between the ages of 12–19 years of age along with a sibling (48 female) between the ages of 11–21 years old, were randomized to the FCU or a psychoeducation (PE) comparison condition. Findings indicated that the FCU did not produce better effects on alcohol and other drug use outcomes than the PE condition, in either the adolescent or sibling. Brief interventions addressing parenting behaviors may not be sufficient to reduce alcohol use in adolescent drinkers not referred due to an alcohol-related incident. Future research might be conducted to explore whether brief parent interventions, such as those in the present study, could be useful as a preventive intervention for parents whose teens report low levels of substance use.

Is it Selection or Socialization? Disentangling Peer Influences on Heavy Drinking and Marijuana Use Among Adolescents Whose Parents Received Brief Interventions

“…36 Future work with larger samples should seek to employ social network analysis to examine peer effects to adequately disentangle socialization and selection. 37,38 In addition, as discussed in the primary outcome paper, 21 the sample size was limited due to the challenges of recruiting adolescents with problematic SU who had both a sibling and parent willing to participate. Our ability to detect significant effects within a small sample attests to the strength of the observed associations; however, the sample size may have limited our ability to detect differences by treatment condition.…”

“…This analysis used data from a randomized trial of 2 parenting BIs for adolescent SU. 21 Research staff gave presentations about the study at local high schools. In addition, advertisements were placed in community settings including family and truancy courts, emergency departments, and mental health agencies.…”

“…To qualify, adolescents had to be between 12 and 19 years of age and report alcohol or marijuana use within the past 30 days. A primary goal of the original trial was to determine if the parent BIs affected sibling outcomes 21 ; as such, adolescents also had to have a sibling age of 12 to 21 and a legal guardian willing to receive a BI. Data from siblings are not included in this analysis.…”

“…The FCU was selected as the experimental condition, because it specifically targeted parent risk and protective factors associated with adolescent alcohol and drug such as communication and monitoring. 19,20 Unexpectedly, the parent trial did not find any differences between adolescents in the FCU and PE conditions 21 and neither condition resulted in reduced drinking or marijuana use across the three follow-up points.…”

Motivierende Kurzinterventionen nach Krankenhausaufenthalt bei Alkoholintoxikation bei Jugendlichen – Effektive Option sekundärer Prävention?

“…Dies war in der vorliegenden Untersuchung nicht standardisiert durchgeführt worden. Das erscheint angesichts neuerer Untersuchungen, die Effekte von Kurzinterventionen bei Eltern zeigen, ein wesentlicher Aspekt der fehlenden signifikanten Effekte der Intervention [11]. Eine weitere Limitation stellt die Datenerhebung mittels Fragebogen und Telefoninterviews auf Basis der Selbstangabe der Jugendlichen dar.…”