Psychological Intervention for Child Mental Health Based on Parental Reflective Functioning to Enhance Positive Parenting

Summary

In this study we aim to verify the effectiveness of a psychological intervention for preschool children, 3 to 6 years of age, with psychological problems or disorders, arising from adversity, Skills4Parenting+.

Skills4Parenting+, with 6 to 8 weekly sessions, aims to treat the child's psychological problems or disorders, based on parental reflective functioning, to activate and develop parents' positive parenting skills, in response to situations of adversity.

To assess the effectiveness, we plan to conduct an a simple two-arm RCT study, where children are randomly allocated to an immediate intervention group (IIG) or a delayed intervention group (DIG).

The IIG will be assessed at 3 time-points: Time 0 (pre-test: before the 1st session); Time 1 (post-test: after the last session) and Time 2 (follow-up: 8 weeks after the last session). The DIG will be assessed at 4 time-points: Time 0 (pre-test 1: before the 1st session); Time 0+ (pre-test 2: 8 weeks after the 1st session); Time 1 (post-test: after the last session) and Time 2 (follow up: 8 weeks after the last session). A time period of 8 weeks will be maintained between each time point.

In this study, we expect the (1) psychological intervention to significantly diminish the child's psychological problems or disorders (from pretest to posttest); (2) parental reflective functioning will mediate the effect of the psychological intervention on child's psychological problems or disorders; (3) the children from IIG will demonstrate a significant improvement in their mental health, in comparison to the children from the DIG; and (4) for the effects of the psychological intervention (i.e., improvement in the child's mental health) to be maintained in the medium-term (from posttest to follow-up).

Conditions

• Externalizing Problems
• Internalizing Problems

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Skills4Parenting+

Skills4Parenting+ has 6-8 weekly individual online sessions (50 min) + 8-week follow-up. First, an assessment session of parents' positive parenting skills (PPS), based on mother/father-child interaction observation. The following sessions aim to (1) promote parental reflective functioning, enhancing parents' understanding of the child´s problems, and (2) activate PPS to solve the child's problems. Written registers of problematic situations - in which the problems of the child occur, are analyzed (i.e., child's and parents' behaviors, thoughts, and feelings) (intersession activity) - are reflected upon, to understand and solve through PPS. PPS implementations are analyzed to understand the changes in the child and parent. Future situations and activation of appropriate PPS are anticipated, to solve potential upcoming problems of the child's, related to adversity. When the therapeutic goals have not been fully achieved, two additional sessions (total of 8 instead of 6), are added.

OTHER

Waiting-list (nocebo)

Participants wait to receive the psychological intervention (Skills4Parenting+) for eight weeks, after the assessment session.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal

  collaborator OTHER

• Psychology Research Center (CIPsi)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Psychology Association of the University of Minho (aPsi-UMinho)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• ProChild CoLAB - The Collaborative Laboratory against child poverty and social exclusion

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of Minho

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

3 Years

Max Age

6 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-02-04

Primary Completion

2025-12-31

Completion

2025-12-31

Countries

• Portugal

Study Locations