@Article{info:doi/10.2196/29538,
author="Sung, Jenna Y
and Mumper, Emma
and Schleider, Jessica Lee",
title="Empowering Anxious Parents to Manage Child Avoidance Behaviors: Randomized Control Trial of a Single-Session Intervention for Parental Accommodation",
journal="JMIR Ment Health",
year="2021",
month="Jul",
day="6",
volume="8",
number="7",
pages="e29538",
keywords="acceptability; adolescent mental health; adolescent; anxiety; avoidance; behavior; child mental health; children; digital mental health; intervention; mental health; parent; prevention; young adult",
abstract="Background: A majority of youth who need anxiety treatment never access support. This disparity reflects a need for more accessible, scalable interventions---particularly those that may prevent anxiety in high-risk children, mitigating future need for higher-intensity care. Self-guided single-session interventions (SSIs) may offer a promising path toward this goal, given their demonstrated clinical utility, potential for disseminability, and low cost. However, existing self-guided SSIs have been designed for completion by adolescents already experiencing symptoms, and their potential for preventing anxiety in children---for instance, by mitigating known anxiety risk factors---remains unexplored. Objective: This trial evaluated the acceptability and proximal effects of project EMPOWER: a web-based, self-guided SSI designed to reduce parental accommodation, a parenting behavior known to increase the risk of anxiety in offspring. Methods: In total, 301 parents who reported elevated anxiety symptoms with children aged 4-10 years received either project EMPOWER or an informational control (containing psychoeducational materials and resources); parents self-reported their accommodation of child anxiety and overall distress tolerance at baseline and 2-week follow-up. Results: Relative to control-group parents, those who received the intervention outlined in project EMPOWER reported significant reductions in their accommodation of child anxiety (ds=0.61; P<.001) and significant increases in their distress tolerance (ds=0.43; P<.001) from baseline to 2-week follow-up. Additionally, parents rated project EMPOWER as highly acceptable (ie, easy to use, helpful, and engaging) in accordance with preregistered benchmarks. Conclusions: Project EMPOWER is an acceptable self-guided SSI for parents of children at-risk for anxiety, which yields proximal reductions in clinically relevant targets. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04453865; https://tinyurl.com/4h84j8t9 ",
issn="2368-7959",
doi="10.2196/29538",
url="https://mental.jmir.org/2021/7/e29538",
url="https://doi.org/10.2196/29538",
url="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34255718"
}