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Principles for Designing Randomized Preventive Trials in Mental Health: An Emerging Developmental Epidemiology Paradigm
Author(s) -
Brown C. Hendricks,
Liao Jason
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1022142021441
Subject(s) - moderation , health psychology , intervention (counseling) , research design , public health , mental health , psychology , randomized controlled trial , clinical study design , clinical psychology , test (biology) , population , clinical trial , applied psychology , medicine , psychiatry , social psychology , environmental health , nursing , social science , paleontology , surgery , pathology , sociology , biology
An emerging population‐based paradigm is now being used to guide the design of preventive trials used to test developmental models. We discuss elements of the designs of several ongoing randomized preventive trials involving reduction of risk for children of divorce, for children who exhibit behavioral or learning problems, and for children whose parents are being treated for depression. To test developmental models using this paradigm, we introduce three classes of design issues: design for prerandomization, design for intervention, and design for postintervention. For each of these areas, we present quantitative results from power calculations. Both scientific and cost implications of these power calculations are discussed in terms of variation among subjects on preintervention measures, unit of intervention, assignment, balancing, number of pretest and posttest measures, and the examination of moderation effects.