Online Parent Education for Child Anxiety

Part of paid clinical trials in Boston, Massachusetts.

Sponsor
Massachusetts General Hospital
Study ID
NCT07153250
Status
Recruiting
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Conditions

  • Anxiety Disorders

Eligibility Criteria

Sex
ALL
Age
18 Years - N/A
Healthy Volunteers
Not accepted

Interventions

  • Project EMPOWER — BEHAVIORAL
    Project EMPOWER is a web-based, self-administered program for parents that takes about 20 minutes to complete.
  • Being Brave Parent Education — BEHAVIORAL
    Being Brave Parent Education is an online, self-guided program which consists of three brief video-recorded lessons (approximately 20 minutes each) with accompanying knowledge checks and workbook on implementing parent-directed cognitive-behavioral therapy.
  • Sharing Feelings — BEHAVIORAL
    A self-guided 20-minute educational control, that teaches parents about the importance of sharing feelings and about helpful versus unhelpful expression of emotion.

Study Details

The investigators are doing this research to test whether parents of children ages 2-7 can better manage their child's anxiety by completing a brief, online, self-guided parent education program. One way to provide anxiety management skills to more children, and to potentially prevent worsening outcomes, is to offer online and self-guided educational programs that parents can complete without a clinician. This randomized trial will evaluate the effects of two brief, online, self-guided parent education programs designed to improve parents' understanding of anxiety and teach parents way to help their children cope with anxiety. Parents will be randomly assigned to one of the three programs. The main aim of the study is to examine whether the parent programs, compared to an educational control reduce parental accommodation of anxiety across a 1-, 4-, and 8-month follow-up period. As a secondary aim, the investigators will explore whether the parent programs reduce children's anxiety symptoms over the 8-month follow-up period. Results will inform the development of a scalable, low-cost model for promoting access to evidence-based treatment to young children.

Key Dates

Start date
Sep 1, 2025
Status verified
Aug 2025
Primary completion
Aug 31, 2027
Completion
Aug 31, 2027

Study Design

Enrollment
90 participants (estimated)
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT

Arms

  • Experimental: Project Empower
    This program is a web-based, self-administered program for parents that takes about 20 minutes to complete. The program includes 5 elements based on the components of cognitive-behavioral therapy.
  • Experimental: Being Brave
    This program is an online, self-guided program which consists of three brief video-recorded lessons (approximately 20 minutes each) with accompanying knowledge checks and workbook on implementing parent-directed cognitive-behavioral therapy.
  • Sham Comparator: Sharing Feelings
    This program is an online, self-guided 20-minute program, that teaches parents about the importance of sharing feelings and about helpful versus unhelpful expression of emotion.

Primary Outcome Measure

Change in Pediatric Accommodation Scale, Parent-Report [ Time Frame: Change over 8-month follow-up (Baseline to 1-month, 4-month, and 8-month follow-up) ]

Central Contacts

Locations (1)

FacilityCityStateZIPSite coordinators
Massachusetts General HospitalBostonMassachusetts02114-

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By research site
Massachusetts General Hospital· Boston, MA

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