This 3-year demonstration and evaluation study will design, implement, and test the efficacy of a dual focus motivational enhancement intervention spanning the transition from jail to the community for women who are completing their sentences and are at risk of an alcohol exposed pregnancy. Prior behavior indicates many inmates will be at risk for an unplanned pregnancy with heavy and/or binge drinking after release. Based on preliminary studies, the composition of the group of eligible women is estimated to be, approximately one-third white, one-third African American, and one-third Native American and Hispanic. Capitalizing on jail-imposed abstinence from alcohol and other drugs and risky sex, the intervention will draw on two effective behavior change models that have been used together with various behaviors in diverse populations and settings to build motivation for a new start. The transtheoretical model (TTM) identifies mechanisms that promote behavior change and are amenable to intervention; motivational enhancement therapy (MET) is a goal-oriented approach that facilitates change by focusing on client ambivalence about a behavior and emphasizing individual choice and responsibility. """"""""New Start"""""""" components are two sessions before and two after release with a trained counselor, greater than 1 visits to Planned Parenthood for individualized birth control education and optional gynecologic and birth control services, and an optional meeting with a community resources expert. Based on the team's experience with the Jail population and alcohol and sexual risk behavior and with MET and TIM- tailored feedback and self-change exercises, this project proposes a framework process, and content for a brief intervention and a method for refining it based on a pilot study and data now being collected. The study will use an RCT design (n=270) to test the intervention's effect on alcohol consumption and birth control use 6 months after release.
| Mullen, Patricia Dolan; Cummins, A Gaye; Velasquez, Mary M et al. (2003) Jails as important but constrained venues for addressing women's health. Fam Community Health 26:157-68 |
