Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Among Teens Who Are Pregnant or Parenting

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT As many as two-thirds of teens who are pregnant or parenting have been the victims or perpetrators of physical intimate partner violence (IPV) and there is an even higher prevalence of psychological abuse in this population. IPV can endanger teen mothers’ own health, the health of their pregnancies, and the well- being of their children. Despite this detrimental impact, there is a lack of evidence-based IPV prevention programs that are tailored for pregnant and parenting teens. Moreover, despite the promise of virtual program delivery, which may help improve teens’ ability to attend, research has yet to determine feasibility and outcomes of virtual delivery of IPV prevention programs for teens who are pregnant or parenting. The proposed study will adapt the Safe Dates for Teen Mothers (SDTM) program for virtual delivery, in which participants attend synchronous group sessions with a facilitator via a virtual platform. The original Safe Dates is a 10-session, theoretically based, interactive program with demonstrated efficacy in preventing psychological, physical, and sexual dating abuse among teens. We adapted Safe Dates for teen girls who are pregnant or parenting by integrating pregnancy and parenting themes throughout program sessions, increasing the focus on overcoming barriers to seeking help for IPV, and revising sexual assault content. Compared with the original intervention, SDTM was more feasible to implement with fidelity, was more acceptable to participants, and was associated with more favorable changes in intermediate outcomes. The programs were delivered exclusively in person. Before testing this intervention in a large-scale randomized trial, we need to assess whether delivery of the program via a virtual platform could help to overcome known barriers to attendance and improve retention, which is critical to testing program efficacy. The aims of the research are to (1) adapt SDTM for virtual delivery and assess implementation outcomes and (2) estimate preliminary effects of virtual SDTM, relative to an equal attention control condition, on physical and sexual IPV and other salient abusive behaviors over a 6-month period. We will adapt SDTM activities for virtual delivery using iterative input from facilitators and program participants. Then we will conduct a randomized controlled trial with 80 pregnant and parenting teen girls. Practitioners at partner agencies will facilitate virtual SDTM and an equal attention control program (virtual health education program lessons that do not address IPV). We will collect teen surveys at baseline and 6-month follow-up, record attendance and measure engagement of teens in virtual SDTM, and conduct individual interviews with facilitators and selected participants. This project will expand the preliminary evidence for SDTM, setting the stage for a future trial to examine longer term program effects across geographically diverse sites. Adapting SDTM for virtual delivery will establish a method for providing IPV prevention programming to teens who are pregnant or parenting that can be widely disseminated and improve maternal and child health in this vulnerable population.