3 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
This study will examine 1) differences among mothers behaviors and how these behaviors influence their infants reactions, and 2) how mother-child interactions relate to children s temperament, and cognitive (thought processing) abilities, and other areas of development. Depressed and non-depressed English-speaking mothers between 20 and 45 years of age, with an infant 4 months or younger, may be eligible for this study. Candidates will be screened with a mailed survey regarding their moods and feelings. Participants will undergo the following procedures: * Psychiatric Interview: Subjects will participate in a 30-90 minute interview consisting of a series of standardized questions about the their behaviors and feelings. Participants whose interviews suggest a condition that may impact their mental health will be referred to the study clinician for follow-up to confirm or clarify the preliminary findings. Continued participation in the study will be determined following this. * Home Visit: A study investigator will visit the home for 1 hour to film the mother and baby during the mother s typical daily activities. This visit will take place when the baby is about 5 months old. At the end of the visit, the mother will be given a variety of surveys to fill out at home and return at the next visit (see Lab Visit below). The survey questions deal with the mother s relationship with her partner, support from people in her life, typical behaviors of her infant, and how often she feels certain emotions. A packet of surveys will also be left for the participant s partner to complete and mail back to the investigator. The partner may or may not be the child s biological father and may or may not choose to participate in the study. * Lab Visit: Within 1 week of the home visit, the mother and child will come to the NICHD clinic for about 2 hours. During this time, the mother will return the previous surveys and fill out another one regarding her current mood. She will then interact with her child, who will be seated in front of her. The 20-minute session will be videotaped. (There will be breaks during the session.) The mother will be instructed about how she should act (happy or sad). She and her baby will then participate in a variety of filmed situations that will induce certain emotions in the baby, such as happiness, fear, activity, frustration, and interest, in order to learn how different children react to different situations. Participants will be contacted to continue the study when their babies are 12 months old and again when the children are 24 months old. The above procedures will be repeated and some new measures will be added for toddlers that involve activities investigating aspects of early language and social reasoning..
The current study utilized a randomized controlled trial, conducted in a real-life setting, to determine whether, how, under which conditions, and for whom, infusing various levels of human-animal interaction (HAI) in a 4-week, university-based stress prevention program provides an effective approach to prevent negative ramifications of university students stress, promote student executive functioning and learning, while safeguarding animal welfare. This study will examine effects of sole exposure to evidence-based stress prevention content, hands-on HAI with registered PET Partner teams, or combinations thereof on students' moment-to-moment well-being and longer-term functioning in socioemotional, cognitive and physiological domains.This study will also develop a comprehensive coding system and measure the dynamic nature of behavior of participants, handlers and animals during university- based animal assisted activities, as well as the HAI environment. The data and analyses will then be utilized to inform the development of a quantitative measure to capture of the quality of human animal interaction in various settings to experimentally determine causal pathways underlying program effects on humans and animals.
This study will examine the efficacy of a dyadic therapy intervention for mothers who have histories of adverse events (e.g., history of family violence, partner violence, family conflict, and/or childhood trauma, including abuse/neglect) and their very young children (ages 0-5 years), with the goal of demonstrating how an evidence supported, community-based and/or hospital-based therapeutic intervention may help reduce exposure to trauma and incidents of child maltreatment, improve parental stress and mental health, and secure parent-child attachment. The three main objectives associated with Project BELONG are: 1) to determine the effectiveness of a dyadic care model in improving parent/child interaction, parenting confidence and competence, reducing parenting stress and social isolation, and improving access to concrete supports; 2) to address maltreatment risk in children by enhancing social-emotional functioning and developmental progress; and 3) to train new and future mental health professionals in dyadic mental health services and disseminate the model and findings through health professional schools and publications.