Online Parent Education for Child Anxiety

NCT ID: NCT07153250

Last Updated: 2025-09-29

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 90 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2025-09-01
• Study Completion Date: 2027-08-31

Brief Summary

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.

Detailed Description

Anxiety disorders are very common in children, affecting as many as 30% by adolescence. Even 10% of preschool-age children are already affected. These disorders cause distress and can interfere with academic, social, and family functioning. There are very effective treatments for anxiety disorders, but, on average, kids suffer for four years between onset of their anxiety symptoms and proper diagnosis and treatment. Young children often do not receive treatment because pediatricians, parents, and teachers do not realize that treatment can benefit them and because there is a shortage of providers trained to provide mental health care to young children. Given the importance of early intervention, the investigators are interested in whether parents can learn to better manage their child's anxiety by completing a brief, online, and self-guided parent education program.

Parents will be randomized to one of three self-guided education programs: A three-session program with videos and a workbook and two single-session programs with activities. The programs teach parents how to promote brave behaviors in their child (rather than allowing the child to avoid situations that make them nervous). One of the three programs is considered a control condition, but all are education, and parents will not know whether they are in the control condition until after the 4-month evaluation when they will have the chance to be reassigned to one of the other conditions. The investigators predict that parents who receive one of the active programs, compared to the control, will report greater reductions in parental accommodation across 1-, 4-, and 8-month follow-up. As a secondary hypothesis, the investigators predict that children of parents who receive an active program will show improvements in anxiety symptoms across the 8 month study period.

Because the intervention strategies proposed are brief and easy-to-use, they could be easily implemented as part of routine practice, in much the same way as early intervention for other common childhood health conditions.

Conditions

Anxiety Disorders

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: DOUBLE

Study Groups

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.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Project EMPOWER

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Project EMPOWER is a web-based, self-administered program for parents that takes about 20 minutes to complete.

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.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Being Brave Parent Education

Intervention Type: 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

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.

Group Type: SHAM_COMPARATOR

Sharing Feelings

Intervention Type: 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.

Interventions

Project EMPOWER

Project EMPOWER is a web-based, self-administered program for parents that takes about 20 minutes to complete.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Being Brave Parent Education

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.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Sharing Feelings

A self-guided 20-minute educational control, that teaches parents about the importance of sharing feelings and about helpful versus unhelpful expression of emotion.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

Parents will be eligible to participate if:

1. Their child is between the age of 2 and 7 years-old

2. Their child scores in the elevated range on an age-approrpiate anxiety screening measure

3. Parents are English-speaking

4. Parents are over the age of 18 years old

Exclusion Criteria

Parents will be excluded if:

(1) Their child shows symptoms of suicidal or homicidal ideation, psychosis, or primary severe mood or behavior disorder (i.e., if treatment for another disorder other than anxiety is indicate prior to treatment for anxiety)

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Massachusetts General Hospital

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Madelaine R. Abel, PhD

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Locations

Massachusetts General Hospital

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

United States

Central Contacts

Madelaine R Abel, PhD

Role: CONTACT

MGHResilienceStudy@partners.org

617-643-9435

Other Identifiers

2025P001801

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id