Anxiety Symptoms in Preschool Children, Problematic Screen Use in Preschool Children, Social-emotional Behavior Problems in Preschool Children
Conditions
Brief summary
Excessive screen use and anxiety symptoms in preschool children have become increasingly prominent public health problems. This randomized controlled trial aims to determine whether, compared with a control group, an ecological momentary parenting intervention delivered via text messages and a WeChat public account can reduce screen use, anxiety symptoms, and social-emotional behavior problems in preschool children. A total of 356 caregiver-child dyads with children aged 3 to 6 years will be randomly assigned to an intervention group with 178 dyads or a control group with 178 dyads. The intervention group will receive an ecological momentary parenting intervention, including text messages and posts on a WeChat public account, focusing on guidance for emotion recognition, anxiety soothing, establishing regular routines, and reasonable screen use management. The control group will receive only general pediatric health science popularization text messages, which do not include content related to child emotion management, anxiety intervention, or screen use management. The primary outcome is children's anxiety symptoms, assessed by the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale. Secondary outcomes include children's screen use assessed by the ScreenQ scale and social-emotional behavior problems assessed by the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation Scale-30 (SCBE-30)
Interventions
BEHAVIORALEcological Momentary Parenting Intervention
Participants will receive an ecological momentary parenting intervention delivered via parenting text messages and posts on a WeChat public account. The intervention focuses on emotion recognition, anxiety soothing, establishing regular routines, and reasonable screen use management.
OTHERGeneral Pediatric Health Education
Participants will receive general pediatric health science popularization text messages that do not include content related to child emotion management, anxiety intervention, or screen use management.
Sponsors
Anhui Medical University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
DOUBLE (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Masking description
This study adopts a double-blind design for participants and researchers responsible for data collection and statistical analysis. Blinding of participants: Parents are only informed that they will randomly receive two types of parenting and health information, without being told their group allocation or which type belongs to the intervention. Blinding of researchers: The researcher is not involved in random grouping or short message delivery. After the intervention, the assistant provides the researcher with randomly reordered mobile phone numbers for follow-up telephone interviews, and the researcher remains unaware of group allocation during the follow-up. For data analysis, the researcher only receives an anonymized dataset labeled as Group A/B, without knowing which label corresponds to the intervention group or the control group. Unblinding is performed by the assistant only after all statistical analyses are completed. The assistant who delivers the intervention cannot be blind
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
3 Years to 6 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
1. Children between 3 and 6 years of age and their primary caregivers; 2. The primary caregiver possesses a mobile phone with SMS-receiving capability, and is able to read and comprehend Chinese; 3. Provide informed consent to participate in both the intervention and the study assessments.
Exclusion criteria
1. The child has a diagnosed neurodevelopmental or psychiatric disorder; 2. The child is undergoing other forms of intervention or psychological therapy at the time of the study;
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Preschool Anxiety Scale | Baseline and immediately post-intervention | The Preschool Anxiety Scale is a 28-item parent-reported measure of anxiety symptoms in preschool-aged children. Each item is scored from 0 to 4, yielding a total score ranging from 0 to 112. Higher scores indicate more severe anxiety symptoms |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ScreenQ Scale | Baseline and immediately post-intervention | The ScreenQ is a 16-item parent-reported measure of screen-based media use in young children. It assesses screen access, frequency of screen use, screen content, and caregiver-child co-viewing practices. Item scores are summed to produce a total score ranging from 0 to 26. Higher scores indicate greater inconsistency with recommended screen-media practices |
| Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation Scale-30 | Baseline and immediately post-intervention | The Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation Scale-30 (SCBE-30) is a 30-item parent-reported measure of social-emotional competence and behavioral problems in preschool-aged children. Each item is rated from 1 to 6. The scale includes three 10-item subscales: Social Competence, Anger-Aggression, and Anxiety-Withdrawal. Each subscale score ranges from 10 to 60. Higher Social Competence scores indicate better social competence, whereas higher Anger-Aggression and Anxiety-Withdrawal scores indicate more severe behavioral or emotional problems |
Contacts
CONTACTBilin Zheng
Outcome results
None listed