RCT of a Mobile Phone App-based Intervention for Parents of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

RECRUITING

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

700 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2024-01-01

Study Completion Date

2026-07-31

Brief Summary

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The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a 6-week mobile app-based intervention in empowering and supporting Chinese parents of ASD children through knowledge and skills transfer and mindfulness training, to explore factors associated with enhanced user experiences and sustained usage through participants' qualitative feedback and observing naturalistic usage patterns beyond the active intervention period, and to refine the mobile app based on the data prior to wider dissemination of the app. We hypothesise that there will be a greater reduction in parental stress and mood symptoms, and improvement of mindfulness attitude and parenting competence in parents with ASD children after the 6-week app-based intervention than the waitlist controls.

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Detailed Description

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Parents of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children are often stressed about challenges in raising their children with multifaceted needs, and their stress could undermine the child's development. With the ever-increasing demand in clinical services and disruptions by coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), we aim to investigate the clinical efficacy of a mobile app-based intervention in reducing stress and mood symptoms, and enhancing mindfulness and competence in parents of children with ASD. The 6-week mobile app-based intervention programme is a structured course of mindfulness training, and knowledge and skills transfer of parenting ASD children with specific content personalised to the participant's needs, which was developed as an accessible and scalable primary-level care platform to improve the well-being of parents.

In this study, a pragmatic, randomized waitlist-controlled trial will be conducted. 700 parents of ASD children who are ≤12 years of age and either 1. waiting for, or 2. actively receiving treatment from a regional children psychiatric specialist clinic will be recruited. Parents will be randomized into an immediate intervention arm and a waitlist arm. Parental stress level, mood symptoms, competence, and level of mindfulness will be measured before, immediately after, and 2 months after the intervention with self-reported questionnaires. Outcome measurement of pre- and post-intervention from the two groups of participants will be analysed with a Mixed Factorial ANOVA. A treatment x time effect on the outcome measurement is expected.

The results of the proposed study will provide evidence to the real-life efficacy of a mobile app-based intervention service model to support parents of children with ASD in the era of digital mental health. As the impact of mental well-being of parents extends beyond the parents themselves, effective management of the elevated level of parental stress in ASD families is beneficial to the family functioning and long-term development of the child. The solid evidence from this sizable clinical trial can also inform clinicians and service-users in choosing the evidence-based intervention suitable to their context, among the range of commercially available products with claimed efficacy.

Conditions

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Autism Spectrum Disorder Parent-Child Relations

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Randomised wait-list controlled trial

Primary Study Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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Immediate intervention

Both groups will be assessed at baseline on the outcome measurements, after which the immediate intervention group will begin the 6-week intervention

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Mobile phone app-based intervention for supporting and empowering parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Intervention Type OTHER

TRIP is a mobile app-based intervention comprises of a 6-week structured training on mindfulness and educational modules on ASD parenting skills.

Waitlist control

Both groups will be assessed at baseline on the outcome measurements, after which the the waitlist control group will receive usual care in the following six weeks. Afterwards, the waitlist control group will complete outcome assessment once again, before receiving the 6-week intervention

Group Type NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

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Mobile phone app-based intervention for supporting and empowering parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

TRIP is a mobile app-based intervention comprises of a 6-week structured training on mindfulness and educational modules on ASD parenting skills.

Intervention Type OTHER

Other Intervention Names

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TRIP app for ASD parents

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Chinese parents living in Hong Kong
* Parents caring for ASD children, diagnosed by clinicians according to the criteria of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria and aged ≤12
* Recruited from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric clinic at the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, a regional hospital providing the sole public child and adolescent psychiatric service in the New-Territory East Cluster of the Hospital Authority in Hong Kong
* Able to read and understand Cantonese
* Have access to an internet-enabled mobile phone with a valid phone number for the duration of the trial

Exclusion Criteria

* Parents who are not the main carer of their ASD children
* Currently receiving psychological interventions
* Undergoing mindfulness training will be excluded

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes