Study of an Online Program to Help Parents Talk With Their Tween Children About Health, Gender, Body-Image, and Relationships

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Parent-Child Relations; Parenting; Communication
• Interventions: Behavioral: Active Control Resource; Behavioral: Media Aware Parent - Tween

• Registration Number: NCT06408818
• Lead Sponsor: Innovation Research & Training

Brief Summary

The goal of this study is to learn if Media Aware Parent - Tween, an online program for parents of children ages 9-12, helps parents have effective conversations with their child about health and media.

Detailed Description

Parent-child pairs (N=300 pairs) will be recruited to participate in a randomized controlled trial. Parent consent and parent permission and youth assent will be sought. Participant pairs will be randomized into one of two study arms: intervention and active control. All participants will complete a web-based pre-test questionnaire. Youth and parents will then receive access to their randomly assigned resource. Approximately four weeks after completing the pre-test questionnaire, all participants will complete a web-based post-test questionnaire.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2024-05-06
• Study First Submitted: 2024-05-07
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-05-09
• Study First Posted: 2024-05-10
• Status Verified: 2024-08
• Primary Completion: 2025-03-24
• Study Completion: 2025-03-24
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-04-21
• Last Update Posted: 2025-04-24

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 390

Inclusion Criteria

• The adult must be the legal guardian of a child ages 9 to 12 years old.
• The parent must be able and willing to receive email and text communication as part of the study.
• The parent-child pair must have access to a smartphone with internet connection as the resource review will be completed online in a format that is best viewed on a smartphone.
• The parent-child pair must be fluent in English as the study materials are written in English.
• The parent must indicate that they will give the child participant privacy to complete the questionnaires.
• Both the adult and child must agree to participate.

Exclusion Criteria

• Only one parent-child pair per family may participate in the study. If the parent has more than one child aged 9 to 12 that is willing to participate, the parent will be prompted to select the child participant based on the following: if the parent's last name begins with a letter from A to M, select the youngest eligible child willing to participate or if the parent's last name begins with a letter from N to Z, select the oldest eligible child willing to participate.
• In an effort to ensure diversity in parent gender and race/ethnicity, not all eligible pairs who are interested in participating will be enrolled in the study.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Active Control Resource	Active Control Resource	Parents will have access to medically-accurate information about topics such as body image, sexual development, gender stereotypes, and romantic relationships.
Intervention Program: Media Aware Parent -Tween	Media Aware Parent - Tween	Participants will have access to an intervention between pre-test and post-test assessments. The intervention, Media Aware Parent -Tween, is an online program for parents of tweens ages 9-12 designed to help parents have effective conversations with their child about body image, sexual development, gender stereotypes, romantic relationships, and media.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change from pretest in child report of general parent-child communication quality	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Child will indicate the extent to which they agree with nine statements about communication with their parent on a Likert-type scale \[Strongly disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly agree\]
Change from pretest in parent report of general parent-child communication quality	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Parent will indicate the extent to which they agree with nine statements about communication with their child on a Likert-type scale \[Strongly disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly agree\]
Change from pretest in parent report of frequency of parent-child communication	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Parent will respond to questions about the frequency with which they have talked with their child about 12 topics related to prepubescent health on a Likert-type scale \[Never; A little; A lot\]
Change from pretest in child report of frequency of parent-child communication	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Child will respond to questions about the frequency with which their parent has talked with them about 12 topics related to prepubescent health on a Likert-type scale \[Never; A little; A lot\]
Change from pretest in child report of parental media mediation	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Parents' use of media mediation strategies will be assessed including: evaluative mediation of television and restrictive mediation of television, and similar scales for video games and the Internet. Participants will indicate using a Likert scale how often their parent engages in specific media mediation and restriction behaviors. Adapted from Valkenburg et al., (1999).
Change from pretest in parent report of parental media mediation	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Parents' use of media mediation strategies will be assessed including: evaluative mediation of television and restrictive mediation of television, and similar scales for video games and the Internet. Participants will indicate using a Likert scale how often they engage in specific media mediation and restriction behaviors. Adapted from Valkenburg et al., (1999).
Change from pretest in child report of awareness of family media rules	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Child will indicate on one item whether their family has rules about media use (Scull et al., 2019). Response options are "yes," "no," and "unsure".
Change from pretest in child report of acceptance of gender stereotypical roles	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Child will respond to the 7 items to indicate their agreement with statements about gender using a 5-point Likert scale ("disagree a lot" to "agree a lot").
Change from pretest in child report of body-esteem	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Child will respond to four statements about how they feel about their body (e.g., I'm proud of my body) on a 5-point scale \[Never; Seldom; Sometimes; Often; Always\]. Adapted from Mendelson et al., 2002.
Change from pretest in parent report of awareness of family media rules	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Parent will indicate on one item whether their family has rules about media use (Scull et al., 2019). Response options are "yes," "no," and "unsure".
Change from pretest in child report of attitudes toward puberty	Pretest and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)	Child will respond to items (e.g., "I feel ashamed of my body when I have my period") on a 4-point scale from 1 = disagree a lot to 4 = Agree a lot to assess participants' attitudes towards puberty. Adapted from the Puberty scale from the Global Early Adolescent Study (2011).

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

innovation Research and Training; 🇺🇸 Durham, North Carolina, United States