Partners in Children's Health (CSN): a Randomized Trial of an Attachment Based Intervention
Purpose
The goal of this randomized controlled trial is to evaluate the impacts of an attachment-based intervention (Attachment Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC) and Home Book-of-the-Week (HBOW) program on emerging health outcomes (i.e., common childhood illnesses, body mass index, and sleep) in low-income Latino children (N=260; 9 months at enrollment). It is hypothesized that children randomized to ABC will have better health outcomes in comparison to the HBOW control group.
Conditions
- Respiratory Disease
- Inflammation
- Insufficient Sleep
- Digestive Disease
- Skin Conditions
- Body Mass Index
- Infections
- Allergies
- Congestion
- Antibiotic Use
- Overweight and Obesity
Eligibility
- Eligible Ages
- Between 8 Months and 12 Months
- Eligible Genders
- All
- Accepts Healthy Volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria
- Biological mothers - Identify as Latina - Speak English or Spanish - Primiparous and multiparous - Have a 9-month-old child enrolled in Medicaid
Exclusion Criteria
- Children born prematurely (gestational age < 37 weeks) - Children who have major complex medical conditions (e.g., heart or autoimmune conditions) that could interfere with participation in intervention sessions and/or research assessments.
Study Design
- Phase
- N/A
- Study Type
- Interventional
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Intervention Model
- Parallel Assignment
- Intervention Model Description
- A 2-group, pre-and post-test experimental design (N = 260; 130 in each group) will be employed. All eligible mother-child dyads will be randomly assigned to receive the intervention, Attachment Biobehavioral Catch- up (ABC),or the control, Home-Book-of-the- Week (HBOW). Assessments will take place in the participant's home and on the phone.
- Primary Purpose
- Prevention
- Masking
- Single (Outcomes Assessor)
- Masking Description
- 2 tasks will be coded by research assistants masked to assigned intervention condition. Child Stress Regulation: Using video-recorded data collected at Times 1 and 2, blinded coders will rate the child's emotion regulation strategies in the context of mild stressors. Coders will use the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB) to rate the presence/absence of the following behaviors every 5 seconds: looks to mother, communicative gestures, looks to environment; and self-stimulation. In keeping with our own and others' previous data reduction in this domain, we will compute two proportion-score composites for mother-oriented regulation and self-soothing regulation. Coders will rate children's emotional re-activity every 5 seconds to analyze emotional reactivity as a covariate. Sensitive Parenting Behaviors: At Times 1 and 2, blinded coders will collect observational assessments of sensitive parenting behaviors in 3 contexts: (a) play, (b) child distress, and (c) feeding.
Arm Groups
| Arm | Description | Assigned Intervention |
|---|---|---|
|
Experimental Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) program |
The ABC program consists of 10 1 -hour home-based sessions delivered by a trained parent coach. Each session includes the mother and her child together and addresses a specific topic. |
|
|
Active Comparator Home-Based Book-of-the-Week (HBOW) program |
The HBOW program consists of 10 English/Spanish developmentally appropriate books hand-delivered weekly to the mothers. A trained RA will utilize a standard set of questions to ask about the mother's and child's well-being. |
|
Recruiting Locations
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
More Details
- Status
- Recruiting
- Sponsor
- University of Maryland, Baltimore
Detailed Description
The proposed RCT will test the impacts of the Attachment Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) intervention program on child health outcomes. A total of 260 male and female infants will be enrolled in this study, with an age range of 8-12 months (infant) and 13 months- 23 months (toddler). This study will enroll primiparous and multiparous mothers who identify as Latina, speak English or Spanish, and have a 9-month-old child enrolled in Medicaid at the start of the study. Participants will be recruited in collaboration with the Children's Medical Practice (CMP) at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and matriculated on a rolling basis. Each participant will participate for approximately 15 months; the time required to complete the Time 1 assessment, either 10-week condition, and the two post-intervention assessments. The entire study is anticipated to be completed in 5 years. This RCT will test maternal sensitivity and child stress regulation as mediators of intervention effects. It will also examine the extent to which sociocultural factors moderate the effects of ABC. Behavioral methods and procedures will include surveys/questionnaires, audio/video recordings, individual or group behavioral observations, psychosocial or behavioral interventions, and other psychosocial or behavioral procedures. This RCT is powered to detect small-medium intervention effects (Cohen's d's= 0.35 - 0.50). These effect sizes align with previous studies, which have shown small to large effects on maternal sensitivity (d's = 0.23 - 0.77) and small to medium effects on main and moderated child behavioral stress regulation (d's= 0.15 - 0.48) and child physiological (cortisol) regulation, via maternal sensitivity (d=-0.36). For .80 power or higher and a two-tailed significance level of .05, power analyses performed using Optimal Design, Webpower, and Gpower software indicated a post-attrition sample size of N=221 will adequately detect main, mediated, and moderated effects of comparable size. Analyses will be conducted in SAS 9.4, SPSS 25.0, and Mplus 8 and will include regression and structural equation models. Missing data will be accommodated using multiple imputations and/or full information maximum likelihood (FIML) and estimators that are robust to non-normality when missing data are present (e.g., MLR). Data safety monitoring will be conducted by the Principal Investigators and the external Data Safety and Monitoring Board, who will review adverse events, enrollment numbers, procedure reports, raw data, outcomes, preliminary analyses, and other data which will be completed on an ongoing basis and reported to the IRB and a sponsor. Study findings stand to inform the nature and timing of preventive interventions to reduce health disparities that disproportionately impact Latino families and will advance understanding of early social influences that promote health development across the lifespan.