Project PRISM is a research study conducted through the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, TX. We are looking for parents and their teens (ages 15-20) to participate in a study involving several online surveys. For parents, there is a chance you will be assigned to a parenting program in which you will have access to a Project PRISM website with tips and strategies on how to communicate with your teen about social media use, substance use, or other risk behaviors. You may also receive one text message per week for four weeks. The purpose of our research study is to explore parent communication about health and risk behaviors in adolescents and young adults, including alcohol and social media use.

You will be asked to complete an online screening survey that focuses on demographic questions (e.g., age, birth sex, race, ethnicity, social media use) about yourself to see if you fit our study needs. The survey will include contact information from your teen age 15-20 and basic questions about your teen including age, gender, and social networking site use. The overall purpose of this initial screening survey is to determine if you are eligible to participate in the main study where you and your teen will be asked to complete a series of online surveys. You may be assigned to a parenting program in which you would have access to a website with tips and strategies on how to communicate with your teen about social media use, substance use, or other risk behaviors as well as receive one text message per week for four weeks.

If the study is right for you, and you provide contact information for your teen (and give consent if they are 15-17), research staff will contact your teen using the contact information provided and send them a link (via email and text message) to our online screening consent form and survey to determine if they are a good fit for our study. If you and your teen are eligible and agree to be in our research study, you will both be invited to complete a series of online surveys.

In the event that your teen does not grant consent/assent, or does not respond to the consent invitation or reminders, you and your teen’s participation in the study will end and your teen’s contact information will be deleted within 120 days after the end of the study.

Project PRISM depends on our participants and the information you share with us helps us create a program aimed to reduce alcohol misuse and social networking site related issues among adolescents and young adults. We sincerely appreciate the time and effort it takes to be a Project PRISM research participant and we value the thoughts and comments from everyone who participates. Your willingness to report your responses as accurately and honestly as you can is what makes our project a success.

All participants, parents and teens, who are eligible and participate in Project PRISM, can earn money for each survey they take. In total, each parent and teen can earn up to $100 on a Greenphire Mastercard over the course of the study.

All parents or legal guardians and their teens (age 15-20) who are willing to complete online surveys have the opportunity to complete the screening survey in order to participate in our study.

This study involves minimal risk to participants. The most significant risk in this study is the loss of privacy and unauthorized release of confidential information. This could occur if data on an individual participant, or the information that he or she was participating in a study of alcohol behavior, were to be released to anyone outside the study. Psychological risks posed by the research are primarily related to the sensitivity of some of the survey items. Questions include thoughts, feelings, and personal difficulties that may be private and personal behavior such as alcohol use and related negative consequences. In addition, you and your teen are asked to report on illegal behaviors, such as drinking under the legal age, or using controlled substances. Answers to these questions could pose a risk if the information were known and linked to identifiable individuals. It is possible that you and your teen will feel uncomfortable while taking the survey or feel as if you should share information that you don’t want to share.

We have taken steps to protect participants against potential risks posed by participation in this research, such as obtaining a Certificate of Confidentiality from NIAAA to prevent disclosure of sensitive or illegal behaviors. Participants can refuse to participate or withdraw from the study at any time without penalty.

You may directly benefit from this study. First, there is potential for reactivity to behavioral surveys, including the surveys utilized in this research study. Reactivity is the possibility that the research methods themselves affect the behavior under study. The process of completing alcohol assessments is often illuminating for participants such that they react by reducing their risk behavior. Reactivity to alcohol assessment occurs when completing alcohol surveys is associated with changes in alcohol use, specifically reduced alcohol use. Thus, participants in Project PRISM have the potential to benefit from completing the online surveys.

Second, because this is a parenting program specifically designed to improve parental communication and reduce risky social media use and substance use among adolescents and young adults, enrollment in the study over a course of 6 months may increase parent-teen communication and reduce adolescent and young adult substance use as a result of completing Project PRISM.

While there is a chance that you might not receive access to the online program about parental communication, social media, and substance use during the course of the study, all parents who did not initially receive access will be sent the online program via email at the end of study completion for them and their teen. Thus, there are potential benefits for everyone participating in this study.

Your participation is completely confidential. All of your data will be kept confidential and data will be identified only by a PIN (personalized identification number) randomly generated for research purposes, and will not be directly identified by your name. The PIN is always embedded in survey links, meaning the link is specific to you and your survey data. Thus, you will not ever need to enter your PIN to complete study surveys.

You will not be identified in any research reports or presentations of this research. Data identified only by the PIN may be shared with other researchers doing similar work on other campuses, and/or be combined with data from other campuses in some research reports. For eligible and ineligible individuals who indicate “yes” to being contacted for future research opportunities, all personal contact/demographic information (such as age, sex, date of birth, name, contact information, city, state, and zip code) is kept separate from the remaining non-identifiable survey data. Contact/demographic information from eligible participants who provide permission (and parent has provided permission for 15-17 year old individuals) will be kept indefinitely. If 18 or older individual is ineligible, but provides permission for future contact, contact/demographic information will be kept indefinitely as well. Examples of identifiable data that will be kept separate includes age, sex, date of birth, name, contact information, city, state, and zip code of residency.

Participating in this study is voluntary. You may refuse to answer any question and still submit your survey without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You are free to withdraw at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.

Thank you for your interest in Project PRISM! Recruitment is now closed, and we are no longer enrolling individuals to join the study. However, currently enrolled participants may still use this page to access information about Project PRISM.