title: The COPE healthy lifestyles TEEN randomized controlled trial with culturally diverse high school adolescents: baseline characteristics and methods.
abstract: Obesity and mental health disorders remain significant public health problems in adolescents. Substantial health disparities exist with minority youth experiencing higher rates of these problems. Schools are an outstanding venue to provide teens with skills needed to improve their physical and mental health, and academic performance. In this paper, the authors describe the design, intervention, methods and baseline data for a randomized controlled trial with 779 culturally diverse high-school adolescents in the southwest United States. Aims for this prevention study include testing the efficacy of the COPE TEEN program versus an attention control program on the adolescents' healthy lifestyle behaviors, Body Mass Index (BMI) and BMI%, mental health, social skills and academic performance immediately following the intervention programs, and at six and 12 months post interventions. Baseline findings indicate that greater than 40% of the sample is either overweight (n = 148, 19.00%) or obese (n = 182, 23.36%). The predominant ethnicity represented is Hispanic (n = 526, 67.52%). At baseline, 15.79% (n = 123) of the students had above average scores on the Beck Youth Inventory Depression subscale indicating mildly (n = 52, 6.68%), moderately (n = 47, 6.03%), or extremely (n = 24, 3.08%) elevated scores (see Table 1). Anxiety scores were slightly higher with 21.56% (n = 168) reporting responses suggesting mildly (n = 81, 10.40%), moderately (n = 58, 7.45%) or extremely (n = 29, 3.72%) elevated scores. If the efficacy of the COPE TEEN program is supported, it will offer schools a curriculum that can be easily incorporated into high school health courses to improve adolescent healthy lifestyle behaviors, psychosocial outcomes and academic performance.
authors.affiliation: College of Nursing, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. Melnyk.15@osu.edu
authors.forename: Bernadette Mazurek
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Melnyk
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jacobson
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Belyea
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Shaibi
authors.forename: Leigh
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Small
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: O'Haver
authors.forename: Flavio Francisco
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Marsiglia
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000208:ethnology; D015992:Body Mass Index; D003863:Depression / Q000208:ethnology; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008019:Life Style / Q000208:ethnology*; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009765:Obesity / Q000208:ethnology / Q000517:prevention & control; D050177:Overweight / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D015206:Southwestern United States
keywords: Adolescents; High school; Mental health; Overweight; Prevention; RCT