Affect Management Intervention for Early Adolescents with Mental Health Problems

描述（由申请人提供）：由于危险行为（例如，无保护的性行为，药物滥用）在这一发展时期开始，推迟开始这种风险可能会对青少年未来的健康产生重大影响。大约20%的青少年有心理健康问题，损害他们的功能，这些青少年感染艾滋病毒的风险更大。此外，在那些有心理健康问题的人中常见的情绪反应似乎会干扰在传统健康教育或艾滋病毒预防计划中学到的认知技能的使用。此外，与情绪有关的能力在青春期早期仍在发展。这些研究结果表明，干预措施可以达到早期青少年的心理健康问题，以解决与风险情况相关的情感因素，如涉及性，酒精和药物，以减少艾滋病毒的危险行为的重要作用。该项目将是一个经验丰富的艾滋病毒预防研究团队和公立学校环境之间的独特合作，以开发用于有心理健康问题的早期青少年的情感管理干预措施。该项目将以艾滋病毒风险行为的社会个人框架为指导，开始将进入干预发展阶段，包括个人访谈、焦点小组、专家小组审查、脚本编写、试点小组和结构化访谈。在干预措施制定后，将对120名七年级学生进行情感管理干预与仅注意力控制（一般健康促进干预）的初步随机对照试验。对情感管理干预在降低性风险方面的有效性的估计将由较少的自我报告的性行为、改善的情绪调节技能以及艾滋病毒和禁欲相关态度的差异来确定。这项研究将与罗得岛的Pawtucket学区合作，产生一种新的干预措施，将影响管理与早期青少年风险相关因素联系起来，以便为更大的艾滋病毒预防干预研究项目的发展提供信息，该项目利用学校环境来识别风险最大的人群。在这个项目中获得的信息将提高我们对如何防止青少年从事艾滋病毒风险行为的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Early adolescents are at risk for HIV due to risk behaviors (e.g., unprotected sex, substance abuse) initiated during this developmental period, and delaying initiation into this risk can have a significant impact on an adolescent's future health. Approximately 20% of adolescents have mental health problems that impair their functioning, and these teens are at even greater risk for HIV. In addition, emotional reactivity common among those with mental health problems appears to interfere with the use of cognitive skills learned in traditional health education or HIV prevention programs. Furthermore, abilities related to emotion are still developing in early adolescence. These findings suggest an important role for an intervention that can reach early adolescents with mental health problems to address emotional factors associated with risk situations, such as those involving sex, alcohol, and drugs, in order to reduce HIV risk behaviors. This project will be a unique collaboration between an experienced HIV prevention research team and a public school setting to develop an Affect Management intervention for use with early adolescents who have mental health problems. The project will be guided by the Social Personal Framework of HIV Risk Behavior and will begin with an intervention development phase including individual interviews, focus groups, expert panel reviews, scripting, pilot groups, and structured interviews. After the intervention has been developed, a preliminary randomized control trial of the Affect Management intervention in comparison to an attention-only control (general health promotion intervention) will be conducted with 120 seventh graders. An estimate of the efficacy of the Affect Management intervention in reducing sexual risk will be determined by less self-reported sexual behavior, improved emotion regulation skills, and differences in HIV- and abstinence-related attitudes. This study will partner with the Pawtucket School District in Rhode Island to produce a novel intervention that relates Affect Management to factors relevant to risk among early adolescents in order to inform the development of a larger research program of HIV prevention intervention that uses school settings to identify those most at risk. The information gained in this project will improve our understanding of how to prevent early teens from engaging in HIV risk behaviors.