Multimedia Self-Help for Teenagers to Reduce Child Abuse

The National Institute for Mental Health has reported the need for development and evaluationof behavioral self-help core materials for the promotion of health and healthy lifestyles. Teenage mothersare a particularly important segment of the population in need of such a self-help course devoted toparenting skills and stress control. Unfortunately, teenage mothers generally lack knowledge of childdevelopment, have inadequate parenting skills, and must cope with a highly stressful environment, whichare all factors linked to high levels of child abuse. In response to this need, we will investigate anddevelop interactive multimedia for teenage mothers to teach child development, behavioral parentingtechniques, and behavioral methods of stress control and prevention. Phase I technical objectivesinclude the development of a behavioral anger control program, transformation of the material into acaptivating multimedia presentation, and evaluation of the program's overall effectiveness, user-friendlin-ess and appeal to the target population. The extent of subject long term use of cognitive behavioraltechniques will be evaluated in the Phase II program. The significance of this endeavor is the innovativecombination of computer-assisted instruction to provide behavioral self-help for teenage mothers.