CFT Guided Self-help Intervention: Parents of Autistic Children

Summary

This research will aim to test how practical, achievable and effective a brief, guided, self-help compassion focused intervention is for parents of autistic children aged 6-17 years old.

The demands of parenting can be rewarding but also challenging, and it is known that parents of autistic children experience additional pressures. As a result of this, parents of autistic children may be more likely to experience increased stress, anxiety, low mood and lower quality of life, compared to those parenting children who are not autistic.

There has been only a small amount of research so far regarding whether interventions that focus on building compassion, would be beneficial to parents of autistic children. The purpose of this study is to test whether a short, self-guided compassion-focused intervention is practical, achievable and effective for parents of autistic children. The intervention is based on Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) and involves reading workbook material and listening to audio tracks. There will also be some questionnaires to complete and 30-minute weekly support calls with the lead researcher.

This intervention was adapted previously, from an intervention for parents in general, to be more suitable and focused on the needs of parents of autistic children. This study will be the first time the adapted intervention has been used by parents.

The intervention will be tested by 6-8 parents and will be about 13 weeks long. We will collect some demographic data at the start of the study, and there will be the opportunity to complete an evaluation questionnaire.

Conditions

• Autism Disorders and Maternal Stress
• Autism
• Autism Disorder
• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Autism in Children
• Parent
• Parent Mental Health
• Parent Stress
• Parent Support

Interventions

OTHER

Guided, self-help compassion-focused intervention for parents of autistic children

The intervention is a 6-week guided self-help compassion focused therapy (CFT) intervention for parents of autistic children. There will also be pre and post-intervention testing which will take the total duration time to 13 weeks. The intervention will involve parents of autistic children working through an adapted compassion-focused workbook (Kemp et al, 2024), as a 6-week intervention where it is advised that parents read one chapter per-week and practice the associated exercises at least once per day. The workbook was adapted collaboratively using focus groups with stakeholders. It is estimated that these exercises should take 10-15 minutes daily. Participants will have access to audio tracks and written scripts of the exercises. Participants can use the audio tracks as often as they wish. Participants will be sent one section of the workbook at a time, each week via email. They will also receive planned, weekly support calls (30 minutes approximately).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust

  collaborator OTHER

• Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of Nottingham

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mark Hudson, DClinPsy · University of Nottingham

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

DEVICE_FEASIBILITY

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-04-30

Primary Completion

2026-11-30

Completion

2027-09-30

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations