Identifying Factors Associated with Patterns of Student Attendance and Participation in a Group Tier 2 Preventive Intervention: Implications for Adaptation

Abstract The extent to which youth attend Tier 2 evidence-based intervention is an important dimension of implementation. This study examined attendance patterns of 369 middle schoolers involved in a randomized trial testing the impact of Coping Power, an evidence-based Tier 2 preventive intervention. We conducted latent profile analysis to examine student attendance at the 25 Coping Power sessions and found three attendance patterns: 69.9% of youth had high and stable attendance, 19.5% of youth had moderate and modestly declining attendance, and 10.6% had poor and sharply declining attendance. We then examined whether students of a particular gender and race or in single-gender/race intervention groups were more likely to demonstrate certain attendance patterns and whether there were mean differences across attendance patterns on student behavioral risk, affect, and group engagement, group characteristics (e.g., group behavioral norms), and individual contacts with the group leader. Analyses indicated students demonstrating the poor and sharply declining attendance pattern had higher early-session negative affect than students with the other two attendance patterns and were less likely to be in gender-balanced groups than students with moderate and modestly declining attendance. Students with moderate and modestly declining attendance spent more time in contacts with group leaders than students with high and stable attendance. Students with high attendance were in groups with the highest early-session group attendance rates. Implications of these findings for adaptation and tailoring of the Tier 2 Coping Power program are discussed.