Online Divorce Education for Separating/Divorcing Parents

描述（由申请人提供）：在美国，每年约有2%的已婚夫妇离婚（Amato和Irving， 2006）。这些离婚中有一半以上涉及未成年子女，每年有超过100万儿童经历父母离婚。虽然大多数父母离婚的孩子在正常的适应范围内进入成年，但高达30%的孩子在成年后表现出社会和心理问题（阿马托，2003）。这些问题包括吸食大麻、酒精、香烟和其他非法物质的可能性增加（Neher and Short, 1998; Suh, Schutz, and Johanson, 1996）。SAMHSA和NIDA支持的研究已经确定了许多与家庭有关的因素可以预测药物滥用的风险增加，包括父母冲突高和父母参与程度低（Guo等人，2002;Hawkins, Catalano, and Miller, 1992；国家药物控制政策办公室，n.d.; Robertson, David, and Rao, 2003）。因此，药物使用预防和干预项目的关键目标包括减少父母冲突和增加父母参与（Guo等人，2002）。这些目标与加强儿童对离婚的适应以及“中间儿童”（CIM）的目标和内容（CIM是一项针对离婚/分居父母的循证项目）相关的因素是平行的。这个项目的主要目的是推出和评价在线英语和西班牙语版本的国际监测中心，目前是一个小组干预。对CIM小组形式的研究表明，它在减少父母冲突、改善父母沟通、减少儿童接触父母冲突、降低法律再诉讼率以及促进非居住父母接触儿童方面取得了成功（Arbuthnot and Gordon, 1995,1996; Arbuthnot, Kramer, and Gordon, 1997）。第一阶段将研究一种廉价的、易于访问的在线课程的可行性，以吸引、理解和对家长有用；测试使用在线测量来记录父母对离婚调整和避免药物滥用相关因素的知识的变化；并确定这种干预在多大程度上减少了报告的父母冲突，增加了父母的参与，增加了父母与孩子关于药物使用的对话。为了实现这些目标，美国农村县的家长将被分配到CIM Group或CIM Online，并被邀请参加研究。通过开发和启动在线CIM，我们的长期目标是为家长和专业人士提供更多的机会来参与这个项目。项目简介：在分居和离婚期间，孩子们经常暴露于父母冲突的增加和父母参与的减少，使他们面临药物滥用和社会和心理问题的风险增加。本项目将评估“中间的孩子”在线版本的可行性，这是一种基于技能的干预，已被证明可以有效减少父母冲突，促进父母与孩子的参与，以解决分居/离婚父母的这些因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Each year about 2 percent of currently married couples divorce in the United States (Amato and Irving, 2006). With just over half of these divorces involving minor children, more than 1 million children annually experience parental divorce. While most children whose parents divorce enter adulthood within normal ranges of adjustment, up to 30 percent exhibit social and psychological problems into adulthood (Amato, 2003). These problems include an increased likelihood of using marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes and other illicit substances (Neher and Short, 1998; Suh, Schutz, and Johanson, 1996). SAMHSA- and NIDA- supported studies have pinpointed many family-related factors that predict increased risk of substance abuse, including high parental conflict and low levels of parental involvement (Guo et al., 2002; Hawkins, Catalano, and Miller, 1992; Office of National Drug Control Policy, n.d; Robertson, David, and Rao, 2003). Thus, key targets for drug-use prevention and intervention programs include reducing parental conflict and increasing parental involvement (Guo et al., 2002). These targets parallel factors associated with enhancing children's adjustment to divorce and goals and content of Children in the Middle (CIM), an evidence-based program for divorcing/separating parents. The primary aim of this project is to launch and evaluate on-line English and Spanish versions of CIM, currently a group intervention. Studies on CIM Group format indicate that it is successful in reducing parental conflict, improving parental communication, reducing child exposure to parental conflict, reducing the rate of legal re-litigation, and facilitating non-residential parental access to children (Arbuthnot and Gordon, 1995, 1996; Arbuthnot, Kramer, and Gordon, 1997). Phase I will examine the feasibility of an inexpensive, easily accessible online program to be appealing, comprehensible, and useful to parents; to test the use of online measures to document changes in parents' knowledge of factors associated with divorce adjustment and avoidance of substance abuse; and to determine the extent to which this intervention reduces reported parental conflict, increases parental involvement, and increases parents' initiation of conversations about substance use with their children. To accomplish these goals parents in a rural US county will be assigned to either CIM Group or CIM Online and invited to participate in the study. By developing and launching CIM Online the long- term goal is to provide parents and professionals greater access to this program. Project Narrative: During separation and divorce, children often are exposed to increased parental conflict and decreased parental involvement, placing them at increased risk of substance abuse and social and psychological problems. This project will evaluate the feasibility of an online version of Children in the Middle, a skills-based intervention that has been shown to effectively reduce parental conflict and promote parental involvement with children, to address these factors for separating/divorcing parents.