Individual and Group Intervention Formats with Aggressive Children

描述（由申请人提供）：荟萃分析表明，将有外化行为问题的儿童分组可能会降低预防性干预的有效性（Lipsey, 2006）。文献中有两个主要的空白限制了我们对这一现象的理解。首先，干预内容往往与干预形式相混淆，很难将干预效果这两个问题清晰地区分开来。很少有研究将儿童随机分配到单一干预组或单独干预组。其次，干预研究很少仔细研究个体对直接观察小组会议的干预反应，以确定可能增强或削弱干预效果的具体过程和事件（Dishion & Dodge, 2006）。这项研究建议在随机试验的背景下做到这两点。如果这项研究能够检验已经建立了证据基础并具有广泛传播潜力的干预措施的形式变化，那么它将是最有成效的。当前的应用程序将使用应对能力程序的儿童部分，基于情境社会认知模型，作为重点干预。应对能力预防项目已经被证明对青少年的攻击、犯罪和物质使用有预防作用（Lochman & Wells, 2002a, 2002b, 2003, 2004）。计划中的研究将随机分配具有攻击性的儿童参加应对能力儿童成分的两个版本中的一个。应对能力子组件将以通常的小组形式（小组应对能力：GCP）或以新开发的个人形式（个人应对能力：ICP）交付。据推测，与GCP相比，在一年的后续评估中，ICP将产生更大的物质使用减少，儿童外化行为问题和犯罪。本研究还将确定儿童的特征（如：努力控制、结果预期、攻击的严重程度、冷酷无情的特征、冲动决策、同伴排斥和受害行为、以及其他行为）人口统计学变量)和群体领导者的行为会影响GCP条件下儿童对群体偏差同伴效应的易感性（基于小组会议录像编码和领导者评分），并削弱干预对药物使用、犯罪和外化行为问题的影响。公共卫生相关性：一个重要的中心公共卫生问题涉及提供以证据为基础的预防性干预措施，以减少青少年滥用药物和暴力。在青少年预防领域，出现了一个关键的问题，即以群体形式与有风险的反社会儿童一起工作可能会产生异常的同伴效应，从而使儿童加剧或维持他们的行为问题，而不是减少它们。该应用程序提供了一个创新的机会，可以在随机试验中对干预过程中促进或预防异常同伴过程的条件进行实证检验，并且将是第一个直接比较团体与个人管理对长期青少年结果的影响的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Meta-analyses suggest that aggregating children with externalizing behavior problems into groups has the potential of reducing the effectiveness of preventive interventions (Lipsey, 2006). There are two major gaps in the literature that limit our understanding of this phenomenon. First, intervention content is often confounded with the intervention format, so it is difficult to clearly disentangle the two issues about intervention effects. Few studies have randomly assigned children to a single intervention delivered in either group vs individual format. Second, rarely do intervention studies carefully study individual responses to an intervention vis a vis direct observation of group sessions, to identifiy specific processes and events that may enhance or detract from the intervention's effectiveness (Dishion & Dodge, 2006). This research proposes to do both within the context of a randomized trial. This research will be most productive if it can test variations in format for an intervention that has already established an evidence base and has the potential for wide dissemination. The current application will use the child component of the Coping Power program, based on a contextual social- cognitive model, as the focal intervention. The Coping Power prevention program has been demonstrated to have preventive effects on youths' aggression, delinquency and substance use in prior efficacy and effectiveness (Lochman & Wells, 2002a, 2002b, 2003, 2004) studies. The planned study will randomly assign aggressive children to one of two versions of the Coping Power child component. The Coping Power child component will either be delivered in the usual small group format (Group Coping Power: GCP) or in a newly-developed individual format (Individual Coping Power: ICP). It is hypothesized that ICP will produce greater reductions in substance use, children's externalizing behavior problems and delinquency at a one-year follow-up assessment, in comparison to GCP. This study will also determine whether children's characteristics (e.g., effortful control; outcome expectations; severity of aggression; callous-unemotional traits; impulsive decision-making; peer rejection and victimization; demographic variables) and group leaders' behaviors will influence children's susceptibility to deviant peer effects in groups in the GCP condition (based on coding of videotaped group sessons and leader ratings), and weaken the intervention's effects on substance use, delinquency and externalizing behavior problems. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: A significant central public health issue involves the provision of evidence-based preventive interventions to reduce youth substance abuse and violence. Within the youth prevention field, a critical concern has arisen that working with at-risk antisocial children in group formats has the potential for deviant peer effects, whereby children escalate or maintain their behavior problems, rather than reducing them. This application offers an innovative opportunity to empirically examine conditions under which deviant peer processes are promoted or prevented during the course of intervention in a randomized trial, and will be the first study to directly compare the effects of group versus individual administration of the same evidence-based preventive intervention on long-term youth outcomes.