Free From Abuse: The Booster Project

University of Sheffield148 enrolled

Overview

This project is designed to develop and test a brief internet-delivered intervention to promote healthy relationships among young adults.

In spite of the fact that young adults are at an increased risk of experiencing and perpetrating intimate partner violence (IPV), there is a lack of universal and widely accessible prevention programmes targeted at this age group. One of the reasons for this may be that it is difficult to deliver a universal prevention to individuals who are not formally grouped through one organisation, such as employed young adults. Those who are formally grouped, such as university students, are unlikely to take part in a lengthy prevention programme which is not a part of an official curriculum. Therefore, there is a need for widely available, accessible, and efficacious IPV prevention programmes that could be appropriate for all young adults regardless of gender. Since many young adults in contemporary Western societies were exposed to some kind of relationship education in schools, it may be that a brief programme will suffice to further boost their awareness of IPV and reduce IPV perpetration and victimisation risk. Therefore, we propose a brief internet-based intervention, Free From Abuse - The Booster Project, to achieve these objectives. Primary objectives: 1. To investigate the acceptability and feasibility of the internet-delivered intervention to university students (determined using the 1 and 4-week follow-up rates, % of participants who correctly answered control questions assessing compliance); 2. To assess the acceptability and feasibility of the outcome measures as methods to measure effectiveness of the intervention within a definitive trial (determined using % of missing data); 3. To estimate the standard deviation (SD) for the continuous outcomes to inform sample size calculations for a definitive trial. Secondary objective: 1\. To evaluate the potential effectiveness of the brief internet-delivered intervention, Free From Abuse - The Booster Project, in increasing recognition of abusive behaviour, as well as reducing acceptance of myths about domestic violence, abuse perpetration, and abuse victimisation among young university students compared with placebo.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Enrollment

148

Conditions

Violence, Gender-Based Violence, Domestic

Interventions

Free From AbuseOTHER

Participants in the treatment arm will watch a 15-minute talk given by an adult female survivor of IPV who tells the story of her abusive relationship. After watching the video, participants will read information on 10 signs of an unhealthy relationship. The intervention will take approximately 25 minutes to complete.

Technology and crimeOTHER

Participants in the placebo control arm will watch a 19-minute talk on technology development and crime. After watching the video, participants will read 10 facts about cyber security. The intervention will take approximately 25 minutes to complete.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 24 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Participants must be university students aged between 18-24 years, reside in the UK, have access to a computer and internet connection, and be fluent in English. Exclusion Criteria: * Participants will not be eligible to enrol in the trial if they have visual and/or auditory deficits with regards to watching video clips.

Locations (1)

The University of Sheffield

Sheffield, United Kingdom

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Change in recognition of abusive behaviour

Recognition of adolescent relationship abuse (ARA) scale (Rothman, Decker, \& Silverman, 2006); scores on this 12-item self-report scale range from 12 to 60, with higher scores indicating an increased recognition of abusive behaviour

Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention - an average of 1 hour, 1 week, 4 weeks

Change in acceptance of myths about domestic violence

Domestic Violence Myth Acceptance Scale (DVMAS; Peters, 2008); scores on this 18-item self-report scale range from 18 to 108, with higher scores indicating an increased acceptance of myths about domestic violence

Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention - an average of 1 hour, 1 week, 4 weeks

Secondary Outcomes

Change in abuse perpetration

Safe Dates - Psychological Abuse Perpetration scale (Foshee et al., 1996, 1998); scores on this 14-item self-report scale range from 14 to 56, with higher scores indicating an increased abuse perpetration

Time frame: baseline, 4 weeks

Change in abuse victimisation

14-item Safe Dates - Psychological Abuse Victimisation scale (Foshee et al., 1996, 1998); scores on this 14-item self-report scale range from 14 to 56, with higher scores indicating an increased abuse victimisation

Time frame: baseline, 4 weeks

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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