Active clinical trials for "Problem Behavior"

Objective This study examines the effects of the MY LIFE treatment, a group intervention aiming to increase hope, self-worth and social support seeking in adolescents with behavioral problems in mental health care. Method This study is a group randomized controlled trial to determine whether MY LIFE is effective, by comparing care as usual with care as usual plus the MY LIFE treatment. Groups of adolescents (N= 50 per arm, Age= 14-20) with behavioral problems will be randomly assigned to either the care as usual condition or the care as usual plus the MY LIFE treatment condition. The second part of the study is focused on the subjective evaluation of the intervention by the adolescents, using qualitative research methods. Results Primary outcomes of the RCT are hope, self-worth, and seeking social support. As secondary outcomes emotional and behavioral symptoms are assessed. The second part of the study analyses the subjective evaluation of the MY LIFE treatment.

RATIONALE Problems of children with disruptive (i.e., oppositional, impulsive, hyperactive, and aggressive) behaviors often grow into chronic disorders and subsequent adverse outcomes, such as school drop-out, delinquency, substance use, anti-social personality disorder, and depression. Ideally, treatment should prevent the escalation of problems, reduce the need for long and intensive or potentially harmful treatments (such as antipsychotics), and lower societal costs. Parent training has a strong effect on disruptive behaviors, however, only few families receive empirically-supported parent training. Programs are typically long and waiting lists are therefore common. Also, most existing interventions are not tailored to individual parental needs. There is thus an urgent need for brief, accessible, and individually-tailored programs. OBJECTIVES This project aims to increase the effective use of parent training for children with disruptive behaviors by (1) examining short and long-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) in a randomized controlled trial; (2) assessing the cost-effectiveness of the brief parent training program compared to CAU. STUDY DESIGN A randomized controlled trial (RCT) with two arms will be used. Referred children and their parents will be randomly assigned (equal randomization) to (a) three sessions of brief parent training, with optional single booster sessions up to one year after the training, or (b) CAU, as regularly provided by the mental health centers involved. The study outcomes will be measured at baseline before the brief training (T0), one week after the brief training (T1), six months after T1 (T2), and twelve months after T1 (T3). For parents in the control condition, similar measurement time points will be used: before any intervention (T0), eight weeks after T0 (T1), six months after T1 (T2), and twelve months after T1 (T3). STUDY POPULATION Children with disruptive behaviors that have been referred at one of six Dutch mental health centers. INTERVENTION Parents in the intervention arm will receive a short, individualized, three-session training primarily aimed at reducing children's disruptive behaviors. 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 will receive care as usual for children's disruptive behavior. The treatments in both arms will be fully embedded in Dutch routine mental health care. MAIN STUDY PARAMETERS The primary outcome will be the severity of four individual target disruptive behaviors that parents want to address in the training. Secondary outcomes will be parent-reported disruptive behaviors, 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 will 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.

The goal of this interventional study is to test the use of olfactory Essential Oils through a nasal stick as one of the non-medicinal strategies to propose to the patient to reduce the consumption of medication in a population of stabilized patients with psychiatric disorder. The main objective is to evaluate whether the olfaction of a mixture of essential oils can reduce the intake of BZRAs, prescribed if needed. The investigators want to compare the number of medications prescribed on "if needed" basis before and after the introduction of Essential Oils. A period prior to inclusion is used to assess the participant's frequency of BZRA use. Then, participants will received Essential Oils through a nasal stick during 4 weeks. During this period, the patient completes weekly anxiety and sleep scales and at the final visit, weekly and monthly anxiety and sleep scales.

This study evaluates a brief motivation-building intervention for parents and teens to reduce truancy and substance use. It is hypothesized that the motivational intervention will result in better outcomes compared to an education-only intervention.

Fluctuations in alertness are very common in persons with Lewy body dementias and are a major source of disability. Changes in a chemical messenger molecule called acetylcholine within certain brain regions may play a role in these fluctuations. We propose to test this hypothesis and also determine whether a non-invasive way of stimulating affected brain regions may be of relevance for future management of these fluctuations.

Cannabis use disorders are common among young adults in psychiatric treatment. Unfortunately, cannabis use can result in deleterious consequences for those in treatment, including developing more severe psychopathology and poorer treatment outcomes. Brief, electronic interventions for cannabis use have been developed for young adults. An example of a frequently used brief electronic intervention for cannabis users is e-Toke. e-Toke can be completed on a computer, tablet or phone, and has been shown to improve motivation to engage in substance use treatment among college students. However, e-Toke is less useful in decreasing the actual frequency of cannabis use. Additionally, e-toke is not tailored to young adults in psychiatric treatment. In this study, the investigators will develop and test a text messaging intervention that can be easily added to the popular computerized intervention e-Toke. The research staff hope the intervention will improve motivation to decrease cannabis use, and decrease the frequency of cannabis use, among young adults in psychiatric outpatient treatment. The text messages will be developed by, and tailored to, young adults in psychiatric treatment and texts will address motivations and barriers to reducing cannabis use in the context of psychiatric disorders. If the text message intervention is found to be an effective addition to e-Toke, this approach can be tested in a larger study, and then disseminated to other young adults in psychiatric treatment.

Mental health crises involve acute psychiatric states, such as aggression and/or self-injury, which can result in harm to self or others. There is evidence to suggest that 20% to 25% of autistic children are at risk of a mental health crises, however no crisis prevention programs exist for autistic children. The goal of this project is to evaluate, via a randomized design, a novel crisis prevention program.

The purpose of the proposed research is to conduct an efficacy trial of the Family Check-Up (FCU) Online to prevent emotional and behavioral disorders among middle-school students at-risk for disability during the transition back to school after the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health and behavior problems are at epidemic proportions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the highest rates in adolescents and children with disabilities. We propose to evaluate the efficacy of the FCU Online, a school-based, ecological approach to family intervention and risk reduction, across a group of students at-risk or identified with disability during the middle school years. The FCU Online for middle school youth has been evaluated in a randomized trial in prior research during the development of the program but has never been tested as a large-scale, school-based intervention or delivered by providers working in schools. It has recently been adapted for COVID-19 and includes new modules on coping with stress and home-to-school engagement to support the return to school after COVID-19 for students at-risk. Students in schools will be identified for services using indicators that are natural to the school environment (attendance, office discipline referrals, and grades), and will be followed for 2 years. We predict that engagement in the FCU Online will be associated with student reductions in emotional and behavior problems, improvements in academic skills, and improvements in attendance. Parenting skills such as home-to-school communication, positive parenting, and behavioral routines will be tested as mediators of intervention efficacy.

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.

Clinicians should appreciate the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) headsets for managing both the anxiety and the behaviour of dental patients. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of using a VR headset as a distraction for managing the anxiety and behaviour of patients during their dental treatment related to underlying psychological factors.