Acceptability, Appropriateness, Child Mental Health, Feasibility Study, Interparental Conflict, Parent Child Relationship, Parenting Behaviour, Parenting Intervention
Conditions
Keywords
Parenting, Divorce, Separation, Separated and Divorced Parents, Podcast, Prevention, Parenting Intervention, New Beginnings Program, Child Mental Health
Brief summary
The goal of this study is to learn if the New Beginnings Podcast can help children whose parents are going through a divorce or separation. The podcast shares parenting strategies that have been shown to help in past in-person and online programs. This study will also look at how easy it is for parents to use the podcast and how helpful they find it. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. Do parents find the podcast easy to use, helpful, and relevant? 2. Does listening to the podcast improve children's mental health? 3. Does the podcast help parents build stronger relationships with their children and reduce conflict between parents? Researchers will compare families who use the podcast to families on a waitlist to see if the podcast makes a difference. Participants will: 1. Listen to podcast episodes over the course of the study 2. Answer questions about their experiences with the podcast 3. Complete surveys about their child's well-being, their parenting, and family relationships This study will include 80 parents and their children.
Detailed description
The adult (parent) participants who are enrolled in the randomized clinical trial will receive a podcast-based program that teaches several parenting skills that have demonstrated efficacy and effectiveness for improving child adjustment after divorce in the short- and long- term in previous randomized trials. The anticipated risks are considered minimal and reasonable in relation to the anticipated benefit of an intervention tailored to help after separation/divorce. The child participants (aged 11-18, offspring of parent participants) will receive no direct benefits of participation but may receive indirect benefits from the proposed research through podcast-induced improvements in their parent's parenting (as described above).
Interventions
BEHAVIORALNew Beginnings Podcast Program
Parents will listen to 5 episodes of the New Beginnings Podcast (NBP-P) over 5 weeks. They will listen to one episode per week.
OTHERNo Interventions
Parents in the waitlist group will get access to the podcast after completion of the post-test survey or withdrawal from the study.
Sponsors
Charla Aubrey Rhodes
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Intervention model description
Participants are assigned in a 1:1 ratio to either the intervention (NBP-P podcast) or the waitlist control group using parallel assignment. Randomization is stratified by parent gender to ensure balanced representation across conditions. Participants remain in their assigned condition throughout the study period.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
8 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
For Parents, eligibility criteria are: 1. divorced, separated, separated but never married, or divorcing/separating within the last two years; 2. one or more children between the ages of 8-18 years old; 3. have in-person contact with their child(ren) at least three hours per week or have at least one overnight visit every other week; 4. have access to a smartphone with internet that can play audio files; 5. English speaking. For children, eligibility criteria are: 1. have a parent who is participating in the trial; 2. be between the ages of 8-18 and 3. have access to a computer to complete assessments. If a parent has more than one child aged 8-18 interested in participating, we will randomly select one child to ensure independence of responses.
Exclusion criteria
\-
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Feasibility of Intervention | Collected at Post-test only (Week 7) for Intervention Group Only | Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM) The FIM assesses the extent to which an intervention can be successfully used or carried out in a given context or setting (Weiner et al., 2017). It includes 4 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1=Completely disagree to 5=Completely agree). Item responses are averaged (range 1-5); higher scores indicate greater perceived feasibility. Psychometric evaluation shows acceptable reliability and validity alongside AIM and IAM. |
| Usability of Intervention | Collected at Post-test only (Week 7) for Intervention Group only | Intervention Usability Scale (IUS) Usability of the intervention will be assessed using the Intervention Usability Scale (IUS), a 10-item self-report questionnaire adapted from the System Usability Scale (SUS). Items are rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 to 4, with response options reflecting increasing agreement. Item scores span the full possible range (0-4). Item responses are averaged to compute a mean usability score (range 0-4), with higher scores indicating greater perceived usability. Emerging psychometrics support a two-factor structure ("Usable" and "Learnable") alongside a reliable total score (Lyon et al., 2021). |
| Acceptability of Intervention | Collected at Post-test only (Week 7) for Intervention Group only | Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM) The AIM assesses perceived acceptability of an intervention among intended users/implementers (Weiner et al., 2017). It contains 4 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1=Completely disagree to 5=Completely agree). Scores are typically averaged (range 1-5), with higher values indicating greater acceptability. Initial development and testing demonstrated strong content validity, structural validity, reliability, known-groups validity, and responsiveness |
| Appropriateness of Intervention | Collected at Post-test only (Week 7) for Intervention Group only | Intervention Appropriateness Measure (IAM) The IAM assesses perceived appropriateness or fit of an intervention for a given setting, provider role, or target population (Weiner et al., 2017). It includes 4 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1=Completely disagree to 5=Completely agree). Item responses are averaged to produce a 1-5 score; higher values indicate the intervention is viewed as a better fit. Development work shows sound psychometric properties consistent with AIM and FIM. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Child Internalizing Symptoms (Child-Report) | Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7) | Child internalizing asymptoms will be assessed using BPM-Y, the youth self-report version of the Brief Problem Monitor (a 19-item short form derived from the CBCL/YSR). Subscales for Internalizing problems will be scored by summing responses to relevant items (0 = "not true," 1 = "somewhat true," 2 = "very true"), with higher totals indicating greater symptom severity. The BPM-Y is intended for youth (typically ages 11 and above) and provides a rapid, validated self-report of internalizing and externalizing behavior (Achenbach et al., 2011; Piper et al., 2014). |
| Child Internalizing Symptoms (Parent-Report) | Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7) | Child internalizing symptoms will be assessed using the Brief Problem Monitor (BPM), a 19-item validated short-form version of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) using parent-report. I The BPM parent-report yields an internalizing subscale scores based on responses (0 = "not true," 1 = "somewhat true," 2 = "very true") summed across relevant items. Higher scores reflect greater symptom severity. |
| Child Externalizing Symptoms (Parent-Report) | Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7) | Child externalizing symptoms will be assessed using the Brief Problem Monitor (BPM), a 19-item validated short-form version of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) using parent-report. The BPM parent-report yields an externalizing subscale scores based on responses (0 = "not true," 1 = "somewhat true," 2 = "very true") summed across relevant items. Higher scores reflect greater symptom severity. |
| Child Externalizing Problems (Child-Report) | Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7) | Child externalizing asymptoms will be assessed using BPM-Y, the youth self-report version of the Brief Problem Monitor (a 19-item short form derived from the CBCL/YSR). Subscales for externalizing problems will be scored by summing responses to relevant items (0 = "not true," 1 = "somewhat true," 2 = "very true"), with higher totals indicating greater symptom severity. The BPM-Y is intended for youth (typically ages 11 and above) and provides a rapid, validated self-report of internalizing and externalizing behavior (Achenbach et al., 2011; Piper et al., 2014). |
Countries
United States
Contacts
CONTACTCharla A Rhodes, Ph.D., Clinical Psychology
Outcome results
None listed