A Family-Based Digital Intervention to Address Early Substance Use Among Adolescents in Primary Care Settings

This proposal seeks to develop and evaluate a novel tailored family-based videogame, FamilyBond (FamB), to prevent increases in substance misuse among mid-adolescents with early substance use in primary care settings. Over six million adolescents misuse substances despite existing interventions due to many hurdles in care delivery that can be addressed using digital interventions. Adolescents also have universal and unique risk and protective factors for substance use and parents can play an important role in adolescent substance use prevention by developing family skills (e.g., parent-adolescent communication, parental support, parental socialization and parent-adolescent cohesion), underscoring the need for tailored family-based interventions. Family-based interventions can address these factors, and digital interventions can mitigate hurdles to intervention delivery that adolescents and their caregivers face, facilitating wide uptake. However, digital family-based interventions for adolescents with early substance misuse in primary care settings are lacking. The scientific objective of this proposal is to apply theoretically and empirically driven approaches to develop and evaluate FamB, an intervention to prevent increases in substance misuse among adolescents. Research Aims are: 1) To develop FamB and assess its usability among adolescents and parents, 2) to assess the feasibility and effect size of FamB among 60 parent-adolescent (14-17-year-old) dyads in a) lowering adolescent intention to misuse substances (primary outcome), b) improving parental self-efficacy regarding parent-adolescent substance misuse communication, and c) improving parent-adolescent communication about substance misuse. Completing this K23 proposal will provide Dr. Aneni with critical new training in several key areas to achieve her long-term career goal of becoming an independent investigator capable of developing, testing, and implementing effective, accessible, and tailored family-based substance use prevention interventions for adolescents. Dr. Aneni and her mentors have compiled a comprehensive plan that will allow her to achieve the following training goals: 1) Gain mastery in conducting family-focused research for substance misuse prevention among adolescents, 2) acquire expertise in developing family-based digital substance misuse prevention interventions for adolescents, 3) obtain knowledge and skills in Implementation Science methods, and 4) hone skills in conducting randomized controlled trials, responsible conduct of research, and grant writing. This proposal is significant in addressing a major public health problem, substance misuse among adolescents, by implementing novel approaches to addressing both risk and protective factors and care delivery hurdles. The vital support from this K23 award will allow Dr. Aneni’s scientific development, leading to an independent, highly integrated family-focused research program addressing substance misuse and improving wellbeing among adolescents.