PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT:
About half of children in the U.S. experience parental divorce prior to age 16. Parental divorce confers risk for
various mental health problems and disorders throughout the lifespan that incur significant individual and
societal costs. Exposure to high levels of interparental conflict (IPC) accounts for much of this increased risk.
The high prevalence of parental divorce, its significant public health burden, and the strong link between IPC
and children's mental health problems highlight the importance of interventions that reduce post-
separation/divorce IPC. Many family courts mandate high-IPC separated/divorcing parents to attend
interventions but none of the currently implemented interventions has been rigorously evaluated. Although two
interventions have reduced IPC in divorced families in randomized controlled trials, neither has been adopted
as a service by family courts, and thus are not reaching high-IPC parents. The current project represents a
foundational step toward reducing the public health burden of parental divorce by developing and testing a
scalable intervention to reduce IPC. It will use an established adaptation framework and human-centered
design (HCD) methods to develop a relevant, useful, and engaging intervention for high-IPC parents that will
be adopted and sustained by family courts. The project will adapt strategies from the two rigorously evaluated
interventions that have reduced IPC; follow an established framework for adapting interventions; use HCD,
which has been shown to improve effects and scalability of psychosocial interventions; and use state-of-the-art
analytic techniques. We will analyze results from a survey of family court judges and administrators to
determine the intervention format (i.e., digital, in-person, hybrid). In semi-structured interviews and focus groups,
court-based service providers and high-IPC parents will provide qualitative and quantitative data about the
intervention content and engagement strategies. These data will be used to develop a prototype of the intervention.
Input from an advisory board, which consists of a judge, an administrator, a service provider, and four parents, and
data from user testing sessions with parents and service providers will be used to refine the intervention. The
randomized pilot will consist of parents mandated by judges to attend the new intervention or the existing court
program. Parents will opt in or out of the research component. Qualitative and quantitative methods will be used
to collect data on acceptability, feasibility, appropriateness, and usability as well as parents' use of the
intervention skills. Before and after participation, parents will complete questionnaires on IPC and child mental
health problems. The specific aims are to: 1) Use HCD methods to develop an intervention that fits with the
family court and is contextually appropriate for high-IPC separated/divorcing parents and 2) Pilot test the
intervention with high-IPC families ordered to attend by the court. This proposal advances NIMH's strategic
plan (3.2, 4.2), which encourages investigators to adapt existing interventions to optimize outcomes and
leverage effective research-practice partnerships with stakeholders to develop scalable interventions.
