NCT07033832

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-based Intervention for Parents of a Child With Medical Complexity

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-based Intervention to Decrease Psychological Symptoms and Increase Psychological Flexibility for Parents of a Child With Medical Complexity: a Pilot Randomization-controlled Trial.

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (estimated)
• Sponsor: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

A pilot randomized controlled trial of an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-based intervention will be conducted to decrease psychological symptoms, while increase psychological flexibility for parents of a child with medical complexity during their difficulties.

Detailed description

Being a parent of the child with medical complexity poses enormous stress because CMC have a chronic complex health condition, which may result in premature death of the CMC. Psychological symptoms commonly experienced by the parents of a CMC. Having a CMC is an ongoing stressor including diagnosis, daily nursing care and symptom management, uncertainty of prognosis that can adequately fear the possibility of relapse. Therefore, seeking an intervention consisting of "Psychological flexibility" is crucial for these parents to manage their stress and difficult emotions more effectively. The ACT intervention help individuals concentrate more on their problems with positive attitude and take initiatives and workable actions to fix the problems associated from the caregiving activities. As a result, they will experience less stress when encountering difficulties and challenges and adapt more effectively. These individuals probably have the potential of natural recoveries from adverse events once the stressor is terminated. Knowledge gap: A review of the literature reveals a paucity of studies on ACT for Chinese parents of the CMC to decrease their psychological symptoms while enhancing their psychological flexibility in local communities. To fill the knowledge gap, this proposal therefore endeavors to develop an ACT and test its preliminary effects and feasibility.

Conditions

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• Child With Medical Complexity
• Psychological Flexibility
• Randomised Controlled Trial
• Depression, Anxiety
• Parental Stress

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	ACT-based intervention	Parents in this group will receive two-hour weekly session with the question-and-answer session at the end. The contents of each session are as follows: (1) the first session consist of introductions of ACT, discussion on stress and struggles, and setting homework, (2) the second section includes role play, and the meaning of "value", (3) the third session involves introducing mindfulness of the breath exercise, debrief and homework on practicing mindfulness and (4) the last session includes introduction of "thoughts", and putting values into feasible actions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-07-02
• Primary completion: 2025-12-31
• Completion: 2026-06-30
• First posted: 2025-06-24
• Last updated: 2025-07-08

Locations

2 sites across 2 countries: China, Hong Kong