Multi-Site Evaluation of Second Step

Aggression Clinical Trial

— SSTP  

Official title:

Multi-site Evaluation of Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention (Second Step - SSTP) in Preventing Bullying and Sexual Violence

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Active, not recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01792167
• Other study ID #: 1U01CE001677
• Secondary ID: UIUC 10147
• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• First received: March 7, 2012
• Last updated: March 17, 2014
• Start date: September 2009
• Est. completion date: October 2014

Study information

• Verified date: March 2014
• Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: United States: Institutional Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

This study is a large-scale, randomized longitudinal evaluation of Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention (Second Step - SSTP), a middle school intervention (Committee for Children, 2008), which targets the shared underlying risk and protective factors for bullying, sexual harassment, and dating aggression. This program is unique in its emphasis on the role of peer group norms, attitudes, and behavior in the initiation and maintenance of bullying and other forms of violence. Because of this, this investigation will involve a direct test via social network analysis the extent to which peer norms or shifts in peer attitudes are impacted by the intervention. Bullying is conceptualized as including verbal, physical, relational, and cyber-aggression. Sexual violence is conceptualized as including sexual harassment, sexual coercion in dating relationships, and homophobic teasing. Thirty-six schools were drawn from four school districts in Illinois and one large district in Wichita, Kansas and randomly assigned to Second Step - SSTP or a control condition. Second Step -SSTP program draws from the risk/protective factors model and social-cognitive theories of aggression. Lessons focus on the outcomes of bullying, relational aggression, sexual harassment, dating relationships, and substance use. Risk factors targeted include inappropriate classroom behavior, favorable attitudes toward aggression and substance abuse, deviant peer affiliation, peer rejection, and impulsiveness are targeted as risk factors. Targeted protective factors include empathy, problem-solving skills, school connectedness, assertiveness and adoption of conventional norms. The P3R: Stories of Us - Bullying program, composed of a series of film-based education will be used in the control schools. All 6th graders at each school will be recruited and followed for the three year study period. Students and teachers will complete self-report and nomination tasks. Growth curve analysis via hierarchical linear modeling (HLM; Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992) will be utilized to assess change in the major dependent variables (bullying, sexual harassment perpetration, dating aggression), structural equation modeling will test for mediators across the study period, and social network analysis will be instrumental in identifying peer norms and attitudes.

Description:

Seven outcome measures were evaluated including bullying perpetration, peer victimization, physical fighting, homophobic name calling (victimization and perpetration), and sexual violence (victimization and perpetration). Given that students in the intervention received only one-year (15 lessons; 50 minutes/week) of the developmentally-sequenced three-year curriculum, it was hypothesized that the strongest intervention effect would be seen for overt physical aggression, followed by more subtle effects for bullying and peer victimization outcomes. Because students were not introduced to concepts of prejudice, bias, and sexual violence (referred to sexual harassment) until the 7th and 8th grade curriculum, it was hypothesized that no significant intervention effects would emerge for these constructs at this point in time.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Enrollment: 4089
• Est. completion date: October 2014
• Est. primary completion date: June 2013
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 11 Years to 15 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Enrolled at one of our participating schools

Exclusion Criteria:

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Prevention

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Aggression

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Second Step Curriculum
social emotional learning program for 6th-8th graders. 15 50 minutes lessons in 6th grade, 13 50 minute lessons in 7th and 8th grade. covers empathy, perspective taking, anger management, impulse control, problem-solving, alcohol and drug prevention, sexual harassment, prejudice, bully prevention, bystander intervention

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	University of Illinois, Champaign, Dept of Educational Psychology	Champaign	Illinois

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	aggression perpetration	Using University of Illinois Fight Scale (Espelage & Holt, 2001)	pre (fall 2010), three posts (spring 2011, 2012, 2013)	Yes
Secondary	sexual violence		pre (fall 2010), 3 posts (spring 2011, 2012, 2013)	Yes

External Links

•   Link to more informatioon