The Family Check-Up Online Program for Parents of Middle School Students: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND: Research has established that skillful family management during adolescence protects youth from a variety of mental health and behavioral problems. Interventions associated with this research have focused on parenting skills as the mediator that links early risk factors with a profile of later behavioral risk, including problem behavior, substance use, and school failure. Fortunately, positive changes in family management skills have been linked to meaningful improvements in adolescent behavior, and these improvements have been significant across a variety of cultural groups. OBJECTIVE: We describe the background, research design, and intervention components of an electronic health version of the Family Check-Up program that is targeting middle school children and is being evaluated in a randomized controlled trial for its usability, feasibility, and efficacy. METHODS: We used an iterative formative research process to develop an electronic health version of the Family Check-Up program. In our ongoing randomized controlled trial, eligible families are randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: Family Check-Up Online-only (n≈100), Family Check-Up Online + Coach (n≈100), and a waitlist control condition (middle school as usual; n≈100). We are conducting assessments at baseline, 3 months following randomization (posttest), and at follow-ups scheduled for 6 months and 12 months. RESULTS: This randomized controlled trial project was funded in 2015. Participant recruitment was completed in spring 2018 and enrollment is ongoing. Follow-up assessments will be completed in 2019. CONCLUSIONS: The innovative Family Check-Up Online program has the potential to help address many of the barriers that more traditional school-based behavioral mental health implementation strategies have yet to solve, including staffing and resources to implement family-centered support within schools. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03060291; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03060291 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/70f8keeN4) TRIAL REGISTRATION: RR1-10.2196/11106