MedPath

Jockey Club Support Project

Not Applicable
Not yet recruiting
Conditions
Family Relations
Resilience
Emotion Regulation
Registration Number
NCT07136064
Lead Sponsor
City University of Hong Kong
Brief Summary

Guided by the process model of emotion regulation, integrative affect-regulation framework for resilience, and the reciprocal dynamics of emotion, affect, and resilience in the family system, researchers will develop a parallel intervention to incorporate two key members in Mainland-Hong Kong cross-boundary families: a parent and a child by improving their affect/emotion regulation skills, de-escalate family conflicts, and flourish under hardships. Specifically, researchers predict that participants in the intervention group will report greater improvement in resilience, emotion regulation, psychological well-being, family harmony, and social connectedness than those in the control group.

Detailed Description

Researchers will conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) intervention study targeting cross-boundary families' affect/emotion regulation skills as well as personal and family resilience. Researchers will implement two arms with the allocation ratio of 2:1. As most cross-boundary children are preoccupied with after-school academies and extracurricular activities, participating parents will receive four group activity sessions, while children will receive two sessions. The intervention themes and skills are the same for parents and children but condensed for children.

Researchers will collaborate with the International Social Services Hong Kong Branch (Shenzhen) (hereinafter referred to as "ISS"), an NGO that has served cross-boundary families in Shenzhen for over 30 years.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
450
Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria
  1. those who have current diagnoses of severe physical or mental illnesses;
  2. those who have participated in similar intervention programs before.

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
PARALLEL
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
ResilienceBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants' psychological resilience will be measured by the 25-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. Participants will report their perceived psychological resilience of self on a 5-point Likert scale (0 = strongly disagree; 4 = strongly agree). Higher total scores indicate higher levels of psychological resilience.

Cognitive Emotion RegulationBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants' use of adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies will be measured by corresponding subscales of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). The study will employ five subscales, including acceptance, positive refocusing, refocus on planning, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective, as these strategies are the targets of the intervention. Each subscale includes four items. Participants will report their use of each strategy on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = almost never; 5 = almost always). Higher scores for each subscale indicate more use of the corresponding cognitive emotion regulation strategy.

Behavioral Emotion RegulationBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants' use of adaptive behavioral emotion regulation strategies will be measured by corresponding subscales of the Behavioral Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (BERQ). The study will employ two subscales (seeking distraction and putting into perspective) as these strategies are the targets of the intervention. Each subscale includes four items. Participants will report their use of each strategy on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = almost never; 5 = almost always). Higher scores for each subscale indicate more use of the corresponding behavioral emotion regulation strategy.

Affective ExperiencesBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants' affective experiences will be measured by the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short Form (I-PANAS-SF). Participants will report their experienced positive and negative affect on a 10-item, 5-point Likert scale (1 = never; 5 = always). Higher scores indicate higher levels of positive or negative affect.

Depression and Anxiety SymptomsBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants' depression and anxiety symptoms will be measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-4). On this 4-point Likert scale from 0 to 3, participants will report their frequency of depression and anxiety symptoms. Higher scores indicate more severe symptoms.

Well-beingBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants will also complete the 5-item WHO Well-Being Index (WHO-5). They will report their well-being with a 6-point Likert scale (0 = at no time; 5 = all of the time). Higher scores indicate higher levels of well-being.

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Family ResilienceBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants' family resilience will be measured by the Walsh Family Resilience Questionnaire Short Version (WFRQ-9). Participants will report their perceived family resilience on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = rarely/never; 5 = almost always), with higher scores indicating higher levels of family resilience.

Family harmonyBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants will complete the 8-item Family Harmony Scale. Participants will report their perceived level of family harmony on this 10-item, 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Higher scores indicate higher levels of family harmony.

Parent-Child ConflictsBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Participants' recent conflicts with their children or parents will be measured by two single-item scales. Participants will report their frequency of conflicts on one scale and the intensity on another. Each scale ranges from zero (no conflicts) to five (more than five times of conflict or very severe conflicts).

Parenting Self-EfficacyBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Parents will report their parenting self-efficacy on the subscale of the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale. Participants will indicate their perceived self-efficacy in parenting activities on an 8-item, 6-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 6 = strongly agree). Higher scores indicate higher levels of self-efficacy in parenting.

Parental StressBaseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks

Parents will complete the Parental Stress Scale (PSS) to measure their subjective feelings of stress as a parent. Participants will report their perceived parental stress on a 17-item, 6-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Higher scores indicate higher levels of parental stress.

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