Trials / Recruiting
RecruitingNCT05872737
FAB Programme for Parents of Children With NDD
Facilitator-guided Acceptance and Commitment Bibliotherapy for Parents of Young Children With Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Randomised Controlled Trial
- Status
- Recruiting
- Phase
- N/A
- Study type
- Interventional
- Enrollment
- 154 (estimated)
- Sponsor
- Chinese University of Hong Kong · Academic / Other
- Sex
- All
- Age
- 21 Years
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
Summary
The study aims to examine the effectiveness of a psychotherapy approach called Facilitator-guided Acceptance and Commitment Bibliotherapy (FAB) in improving the psychological health of parents of young children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) and reducing the emotional and behavioral symptoms of NDD children. The study will involve 154 Cantonese-speaking parents of children aged 2-6 years diagnosed with NDD in Hong Kong. The study hopes to find that FAB can improve parent-child dyads' health outcomes by enhancing psychological flexibility, parental psychological health, and mindful parenting skills.
Detailed description
Background: Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are heterogeneous disorders that typically develop in early childhood and are characterised by developmental deficits that result in impaired personal, social, and/or occupational functioning. In Hong Kong, according to the latest statistical report from the Education Bureau, it is estimated that at least 71,320 preschool and school-age children have been diagnosed with NDD and are currently receiving special education and/or health care services. It is well documented that NDD children have less clear communication signals to their parents and poorer prosocial skills. Continued failures and difficulties in understanding and responding to children's needs may prevent parents from developing positive parenting behaviours, which can negatively impact parents' psychology and ultimately snowballing their NDD child's emotional and behavioural symptoms. To our knowledge, effective interventions that specifically target the mental health of parents caring for young children with NDD to improve outcomes for both parents and children are extremely scarce. To address this study gap, this study will implement and examine the effectiveness of the Facilitator-guided Acceptance and Commitment Bibliotherapy, a facilitator-guided manual reading psychotherapy approach that explicitly targets the psychological needs of parents, in parents of young children with NDD in On-site Pre-school Rehabilitation Service (OPRS) teams. Objectives: To examine the effectiveness of the Facilitator-guided Acceptance and Commitment Bibliotherapy (FAB) and general parenting advice, in comparison to the control (general parenting advice only), on outcomes related to parental psychological health (parenting stress, symptoms of depression and anxiety, psychological flexibility), parenting behaviour, as well as the child's emotional and behavioural symptoms over 6 months of post-intervention period. Hypotheses to be tested: Compared to the control group alone, FAB participation could achieve the following goals: reduce parents' parenting stress and NDD children's emotional and behavioural symptoms, reduce parental depressive and anxiety symptoms, improve psychological flexibility and nurturing behaviours of mindful parenting, and reduce the use of health care and rehabilitation services for young children with NDD over 6 months of post-intervention period. Design: A multi-centre, two-arm randomised controlled trial (RCT) with a repeated-measures parallel-group design Subjects: 154 Cantonese-speaking parents of children aged 2-6 years diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders Instruments: Validated questionnaires Interventions: Facilitator-guided Acceptance and Commitment Bibliotherapy (FAB) Main outcome measures: parental psychological health outcomes and the child's emotional and behavioural symptoms Data analysis: Generalised estimating equation analyses with covariates adjustments Expected results: After participating in FAB, parents will become more psychologically flexible in caring for their children with NDD. Parents also acquire better psychological health and mindful parenting skills, leading to eventful improvements in parent-child dyads health outcomes.
Conditions
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Neurodevelopmental Disorders
- Intellectual Disability
- Specific Learning Disorder
- Communication Disorders
- Motor Disorders
Interventions
| Type | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| BEHAVIORAL | Facilitator-guided Acceptance and Commitment Bibliotherapy (FAB) | The Facilitator-guided Acceptance and Commitment Bibliotherapy (FAB) is a 12-week self-help parenting program that integrates Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) principles with web-based modules and group-based sessions. The program includes a self-help workbook/manual and ACT protocols that cover various self-help exercises such as guided imagery, grounding, mindfulness, and values clarifications. To make the programme more relatable to Hong Kong parents caring for children with NDD, storytelling vignettes and therapeutic narratives will be included. Parents will work on each module at their own pace within 2-3 weeks and meet with trained facilitators in a video-conferencing format after completing each module to review their progress and learn positive parenting techniques. |
| BEHAVIORAL | General Parenting Education and Advice | Both the FAB group and the Control Group will receive routine family support services from collaborating NGOs, including education on managing the emotional and behavioral symptoms of children with NDD. To control for the interaction/social effect present in the FAB group, the Control Group will also receive four video-conferencing sessions guided by a trained research assistant over 12 weeks. These sessions will facilitate parents to discuss their parenting challenges, identify parenting traps, and provide general parenting advice as recommended by the Child Assessment Services, Department of Health under the HKSAR government. |
Timeline
- Start date
- 2023-06-05
- Primary completion
- 2025-09-08
- Completion
- 2026-09-08
- First posted
- 2023-05-24
- Last updated
- 2024-09-19
Locations
2 sites across 1 country: Hong Kong
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT05872737. Inclusion in this directory is not an endorsement.