Effectiveness of a web-enhanced parenting program for military families. The overarching goal of this study is to advance research on family-based substance use prevention for reintegrating OEF/OIF personnel by examining whether an Oregon Parent Management Training (PMTO) prevention intervention, enhanced with e-technology and adapted for combat-deployed families'needs, will reduce risk behaviors associated with youth substance use by improving parenting, child, and parent adjustment. Combat deployment and related challenges are family stressors, associated with more negative parent-child interactions, ineffective and coercive parenting practices and lowered parent satisfaction (e.g. Glenn et al., 2002). Disrupted parenting practices are predictors of risk for child adjustment difficulties that are precursors to youth substance use, including behavior problems, school failure, deviant peer association, and depression (Patterson &Fisher, 2002). These child adjustment problems can contribute to continuing parental stress, increasing parental distress, and further disrupting parenting (DeGarmo &Forgatch, 2004). Despite this, no parenting interventions have been empirically tested for reintegrating military families deployed to OEF/OIF. PMTO is a well-established empirically supported intervention targeting highly stressed parents that applies Social Interaction Learning theory (SIL, Patterson, Chamberlain &Reid, 1982). SIL posits that deployment and related stressors would be expected to impair social interactional patterns, leading to increases in coercion, decrements in positive parenting, and increased risk for child maladjustment. PMTO interventions have demonstrated efficacy and effectiveness, showing reductions in behavior problems that are precursors to substance use, actual substance use, and internalizing problems, as well as increases in social competence and school adjustment (for a comprehensive overview see Forgatch &Patterson, in press). While PMTO interventions have been implemented in multiple diverse contexts no study to date has adapted and examined PMTO among military populations. The proposed project will test the first combined group-online prevention program for reintegrating parents - """"""""ADAPT: After Deployment Adaptive Parenting Tools"""""""". We will conduct a randomized effectiveness trial of the program, compared with a 'services as usual'(tip sheet) comparison group among 400 military families identified in the RFA as a special population: reintegrating Army National Guard ARNG) parents. The ADAPT program will be tested for usability and feasibility in the first year. Subsequently, 400 families will be recruited through a partnership with the Minnesota ARNG, and randomly assigned to ADAPT, or services-as-usual. Multiple-method, multi-informant measures will be gathered over four time points at baseline, 6, 12, and 24 months following baseline, to examine intervention effects on parenting, child adjustment (behaviors associated with youth substance use), and parental adjustment, as well as satisfaction. Dosage (for group and web components) and fidelity of intervention implementation will be measured and examined as putative moderators of intervention outcomes.

Public Health Relevance

Effectiveness of a web-enhanced parenting program for military families. The goal of this study is to further research on effective substance use prevention for military families, by examining whether an Oregon Parent Management Training (PMTO) prevention program, enhanced with e-technology and adapted for combat- deployed families'needs, will reduce risk behaviors associated with youth substance use by improving parenting, child, and parent adjustment. The program's feasibility and acceptability will be examined, and subsequently a randomized controlled trial of the 14-week group program and web enhancement will be conducted with 400 families from the Minnesota Army National Guard. Families with 6-12 year old children will be followed over 2 years to examine program effects.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DA030114-03
Application #
8279382
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZDA1-NXR-B (10))
Program Officer
Sims, Belinda E
Project Start
2010-07-15
Project End
2015-06-30
Budget Start
2012-07-01
Budget End
2013-06-30
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$598,681
Indirect Cost
$174,687
Name
University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Department
Social Sciences
Type
Schools of Education
DUNS #
555917996
City
Minneapolis
State
MN
Country
United States
Zip Code
55455
Zhang, Na; Zhang, Jingchen; Gewirtz, Abigail H et al. (2018) Improving parental emotion socialization in military families: Results of a randomized controlled trial. J Fam Psychol 32:1046-1056
Zhang, Na; Rudi, Jessie H; Zamir, Osnat et al. (2018) Parent Engagement in Online Mindfulness Exercises Within a Parent Training Program for Post-Deployed Military Families. Mindfulness (N Y) 9:725-736
Piehler, Timothy F; Ausherbauer, Kadie; Gewirtz, Abigail et al. (2018) Improving Child Peer Adjustment in Military Families through Parent Training: The Mediational Role of Parental Locus of Control. J Early Adolesc 38:1322-1343
Gewirtz, Abigail H (2018) A Call for Theoretically Informed and Empirically Validated Military Family Interventions. Fam Relat 10:587-601
Gewirtz, Abigail H; DeGarmo, David S; Zamir, Osnat (2018) Testing a Military Family Stress Model. Fam Process 57:415-431
Chesmore, Ashley A; Piehler, Timothy F; Gewirtz, Abigail H (2018) PTSD as a moderator of a parenting intervention for military families. J Fam Psychol 32:123-133
Chesmore, Ashley A; He, Yaliu; Zhang, Na et al. (2018) Parent Discrepancies in Ratings of Child Behaviors Following Wartime Deployment. J Trauma Stress 31:79-88
Gewirtz, Abigail H; DeGarmo, David S; Zamir, Osnat (2018) After Deployment, Adaptive Parenting Tools: 1-Year Outcomes of an Evidence-Based Parenting Program for Military Families Following Deployment. Prev Sci 19:589-599
Pinna, Keri L M; Hanson, Sheila; Zhang, Na et al. (2017) Fostering resilience in National Guard and Reserve families: A contextual adaptation of an evidence-based parenting program. Am J Orthopsychiatry 87:185-193
Snyder, James; Gewirtz, Abigail; Schrepferman, Lynn et al. (2016) Parent-child relationship quality and family transmission of parent posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and child externalizing and internalizing symptoms following fathers' exposure to combat trauma. Dev Psychopathol 28:947-969

Showing the most recent 10 out of 20 publications