Effectiveness of a Web-based Intervention on Parental Psychological Flexibility and Emotion Regulation

Family context, and specifically parents' educational styles (PE) can act as a protective or risk factor for the maintenance and development of various disorders in childhood. When the child is diagnosed of a disease, disorder or difficulty, parents can develop a series of beliefs that will mediate their PEs, their barriers and their emotional repertoire. It can worsen the family climate, lead to maladaptive behaviors, and finally, lead to difficulties in adherence to treatment due to possible avoidance patterns. Several studies indicate that these patterns are mediated by a regulation of dysfunctional emotions in parents by not tolerating the discomfort caused by the suffering of their children.

This project aims to validate a web-based clinical intervention for families with children suffering neurodevelopmental or behavioral disorders to promote psychological flexibility and emotion regulation strategies in parents. Clinical intervention is focused in improving emotion regulation and positive parenting strategies using third-wave/contextual therapies. The intervention consist in 6 sessions with a duration of 1.5 hours. This study compare a a face-to-face parenting intervention group with a web-based parenting intervention. The first hypothesis is that both parental interventions will improve the educational styles, emotional competencies and well-being of parents in pos-test and 3-month follow up assessment. Second, web-based intervention will be more efficient in comparison with face-to-face intervention.