Effectiveness of a Web-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Wellbeing of Parents With Children With Chronic and Developmental Conditions: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Numerous studies have shown that parents of children with long-term and intellectual disabilities suffer more often from symptoms such as stress, anxiety and depression symptoms, feelings of uncertainty and fear, and loss of quality of life. In Finland, there are approximately 17.000 families where the illness or disability of a child under the age of 16 causes an extra daily burden for parents. Especially mothers of long-term or disabled children are vulnerable and have an increased risk of psychological symptoms. Parents of children with a chronic disease or functional disability also have an increased risk of stress-related distress and reduced quality of life. Prolonged psychological symptoms associated with caring for a child with a long-term illness can expose to chronic exhaustion and burnout, which can have serious health effects. The birth of a disabled child and the illness of a child with long-term illness also increases the risk of divorce in the family. Considering the hardship and challenges of this population group, special attention should be paid to their rehabilitation and access to services.

In Finland, for example, the Finnish Social Insurance Institution offers adaptation training and family-oriented rehabilitation courses for family caregivers. However, this form of support has limited availability and, on the other hand, is of relatively short duration. Several studies indicate, however, that the parents' mental health also affects the health and development of the child, and especially the long-term stress experienced by the parent can be harmful to children. The challenge is to motivate parents to take care of themselves and thus to have a better capacity to care for their children in need of special support. The majority of parents have a full-time employment, which also poses challenges for the forms of support. Therefore, the support of this parent group should focus on treatments that are easily available for them.

Web-based treatments offer one solution for delivering evidence-based psychological treatments for this distressed parents, who may often have challenges in finding time to access face-to-face services. Web-based interventions have been developed and tested for a wide range of health problems, including parental wellbeing. Advantages of web-based interventions are that they are not bound to time and place. They are available when most needed and enable integration of the intervention in everyday life.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) represents the third-wave of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies and incorporates mindfulness, experiential acceptance, and valued action (e.g., engagement in meaningful, values-driven activities) to promote psychological flexibility. Several studies and meta-analyses have shown that acceptance and commitment therapy has a positive effect on a variety of psychological symptoms. Promising results from web-based ACT interventions have been obtained for example for the treatment of stress, anxiety, and depression. ACT and other mindfulness-based treatments have been shown to improve psychological adjustment and to decrease stress in parents of children with developmental disabilities including autism and acquired brain injury.

The aim of the current study is to investigate the effectiveness of a web-based ACT intervention on wellbeing of parents with exhaustion and burnout symptoms, and whose children have chronic conditions and/or developmental disabilities. Effects will be investigated at before (pre) and after the intervention (post), at 7-month (follow-up 1) and 10-month (follow-up 2) after the pre-measurement. The research questions are the following: