Building Emotion Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM): Mothers of Toddlers

Summary

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalence of maternal depression and anxiety has increased and research suggests that the cognitive development of children born during the pandemic has been impacted. There are significant concerns that a cohort of children may be at-risk for mental illness and impaired self-regulation due to elevated exposure to perinatal maternal mental illness. Intervention is crucial as the intergenerational effects of maternal mental illness are most pronounced when mental health concerns persist. There is currently an urgent need for accessible eHealth interventions for mothers of young children as the pandemic has contributed to an increased prevalence of mental health concerns and to additional barriers to services. The Building Emotion Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM) app-based program was developed to help address maternal mental health concerns and parenting stress. A two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) with repeated measures will be used to evaluate the efficacy of the BEAM intervention compared to treatment as usual (TAU) among a sample of 140 mothers who self-report moderate-to-severe symptoms of depression and/or anxiety and have a child 18 to 36 months-old.

Conditions

• Depression, Anxiety

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Building Emotion Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM)

The BEAM Program is based on best-practices in telehealth and science-based program design principles aimed at promoting maternal mental health and supportive parenting. The BEAM Program mobile application is designed and managed by Tactica Interactive and hosted on the University of Manitoba secure servers. The weekly group telehealth sessions will be led by clinical coaches (a mental health professional or trainee) and will use the secure videoconferencing platform Zoom (Healthcare license). Parent coaches will be mothers who have recently participated in another research group-based mental health intervention. Parent coaches will engage with participants on the community peer support forum and attend weekly telehealth sessions. The therapeutic aims of the BEAM program are to improve anxiety and depression symptoms and parenting skills using content that draws from the Unified Protocol, and emphasizes self-compassion, effective communication practices, and social support networks.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Calgary

  collaborator OTHER

• Tactica Interactive

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Centre for Healthcare Innovation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Research Manitoba

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Manitoba

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Leslie E Roos, PhD · University of Manitoba

• Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen, PhD · University of Calgary

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-12-01

Primary Completion

2022-09-30

Completion

2022-11-01

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations