Efficacy of a Self-Administered Home-Based Parent Intervention on Parenting Behaviors for Preventing Adolescent Substance Use

Abstract

A growing body of literature suggests that parenting practices characterized by careful monitoring, firm and consistent limit setting, and nurturing communication patterns with children are protective against adolescent substance use and other problem behaviors. Family-based prevention programs that promote these behaviors can be an effective way to prevent adolescent substance use. However, low participation rates remain problematic for many such programs, particularly programs that require parents to attend scheduled meetings outside the home. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of a newly developed substance use prevention program when self-administered at home by parents of middle school students. As part of a randomized trial, 338 parents of middle school students either received the parent prevention program or served as control group participants. Parents completed self-report surveys at home that assessed parenting behaviors at pre-test, post-test, and one-year follow-up time points. A series of mixed model ANCOVAs were conducted, examining the post-test and one-year follow-up means for the parent outcomes, controlling for pre-test levels on these outcomes. Analyses showed that at the post-test assessment, intervention parents reported significant increases relative to controls in appropriate role modeling, disciplinary practices, family communication, and parental monitoring skills. At the one-year follow-up assessment, intervention effects on family communication skills remained significant and effects on parental role modeling were marginally significant. This study shows that a theoretically rich prevention program can be effectively self-administered by parents at home and improve key parenting skills that have been shown to prevent adolescent substance use.

Adolescents from upper middle class communities: Substance misuse and addiction across early adulthood

“…Our own perspective is that from a prevention standpoint, it might be more prudent to treat these elevated rates of addiction as real possibilities, with future research systematically refuting or substantiating this postulate as the case may be, given the substantial costs of these problems to society: estimated at over $600 billion in the United States (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2014). Even among well-educated adults, frequent use of alcohol and drugs is linked with lower yearly earnings as well as poorer functioning at work (Ellickson, Martino, & Collins, 2004; Ellickson, Tucker, Klein, & McGuigan, 2001; Griffin, Samuolis, & Williams, 2011).…”

Parental Monitoring, Media Literacy, and Media Violence: A Preliminary Evaluation of the Fourth R Parent Media Violence Workshop

“…Parental monitoring has long been identified as a protective factor against a number of negative outcomes, including children's substance use (Clark et al, 2012;Griffin et al, 2011;Huang et al, 2011;Martins et al, 2008), poor mental health ), gang involvement (McDaniel, 2012, early engagement in sexual behaviours (Huang et al, 2011;Parkes et al, 2011), and delinquent and aggressive conduct (Huang et al, 2011;Laird et al, 2010;Leadbeater et al, 2008;. Research has also shown that parental monitoring can minimize the negative effects of consuming certain types of media, such as violence (Atkin et al, 1991;Huston et al, 1992;Liau et al, 2008;Nathanson, 1999;Strasburger & Donnerstein, 1999).…”

“…A great deal of research in several fields indicates that parental monitoring can have a positive impact on the social and health outcomes of children and youth. For example, high levels of parental monitoring are inversely related to children's substance use and abuse (Clark, Shamblen, Ringwalt, & Hanley, 2012;Griffin, Samuolis, & Williams, 2011;Huang, Murphy, & Hser, 2011;Martins, Storr, Alexandre, & Chilcoat, 2008), susceptibility to depressive symptoms , engagement in delinquent and anti-social behaviours (Huang et al, 2011;Laird, Marrero, & Sentse, 2010;), gang affiliation (McDaniel, 2012, and dating victimization and relational aggression (Leadbeater, Banister, Ellis, & Yeung, 2008). Similarly, using discrete-time survival analysis to analyze data from a national sample of more than 5,000 youth, Huang and colleagues (2011) found that compared to youth reporting low parental monitoring, those who reported high parental monitoring delayed sexual initiation by 1.5 years.…”

Therapeutic Engagement and Posttreatment Substance Use in Adolescent TC Clients

“…The factors associated with a great potential for substance use are called "risk" factors, while those associated with a reduced potential are called "protective" factors (National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA], 1997). Welldocumented risk and protective factors associated with treatment outcomes include family dynamics, such as a history of parental abuse (Griffin, Samuolis, & Williams, 2011); peer influence (Grella & Joshi, 2003); and comorbid disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Grella, Hser, Joshi, & Rounds-Bryant, 2001;Winters, Stinchfield, Latimer, & Stone, 2007).…”