Investigating the psychometric properties of PaRCADS-Parenting to Reduce Child Anxiety and Depression Scale in a Norwegian sample.

OBJECTIVES: Parents play a pivotal role in child development and several parental factors have been identified as risk or protective factors for childhood anxiety and depression. To assess and target these parental factors in interventions, there is a need for a comprehensive, easy-to-use instrument. METHOD: This study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of an adapted version of the Parenting to Reduce Child Anxiety and Depression Scale, PaRCADS(N) in a Norwegian community sample (N = 163) of parents of children aged 8-12 years. RESULTS: Our findings indicate that PaRCADS(N) has acceptable psychometric properties. These results are comparable to those of the original study of the PaRCADS in Australia. CONCLUSION: Based on these results, we recommend that PaRCADS(N) can be utilized by health care workers as a tool for assessment and identification of parental practices related to child anxiety and/or depression to target relevant risk and protective factors in treatment and prevention.

The Role of Parent Engagement in a Web-Based Preventive Parenting Intervention for Child Mental Health in Predicting Parenting, Parent and Child Outcomes.

Although parents' engagement in parenting programmes has frequently been posited to influence the efficacy and dissemination of these programmes, its relationship with intervention outcomes in parenting programmes is understudied. This study examined the predictive value of parental engagement on preventive parenting outcomes in a tailored online parenting programme aimed at enhancing parental protective factors and reducing risk factors for child depression and anxiety disorders. The present study also explored the associations between parental engagement and other parent, child and family outcomes. Data were collected from a community sample of 177 parents who received a tailored online parenting programme ('Parenting Resilient Kids'; PaRK) and their children as part of a randomised controlled trial. Participants completed measures on parenting, child anxiety and depressive symptoms, health-related quality of life and family functioning on three occasions. Multiple regressions showed that parental engagement explained additional variance in preventive parenting (most proximal outcomes) at post-intervention and 12-month follow-up. Indicators of higher levels of parental engagement, operationalised by greater proportions of recommended programme modules and intended goals completed, uniquely predicted higher levels of preventing parenting. Higher levels of parental engagement also predicted higher levels of parental acceptance and parental psychosocial health-related quality of life, lower levels of parental psychological control and lower levels of impairments in child health-related quality of life. However, parental engagement did not explain additional variance in parent or child reported anxiety or depressive symptoms. This study provides support for the role of parental engagement in facilitating parenting changes in parenting-focused interventions.

Strategies to Increase Uptake of Parent Education Programs in Preschool and School Settings to Improve Child Outcomes: A Delphi Study.

Parent education programs, offered via family-school partnerships, offer an effective means for promoting the mental health and educational functioning of children and adolescents at a whole-school level. However, these programs often have a low uptake. This study aimed to identify strategies for increasing the uptake of parent education programs within preschool and school settings. A three-round Delphi procedure was employed to obtain expert consensus on strategies that are important and feasible in educational settings. First, thirty experts rated statements identified from the literature and a stakeholder forum. Next, experts re-appraised statements, including new statements generated from the first round. Ninety statements were endorsed by ≥80% of the experts. Primary themes include strategies for program selection; strategies for increasing the accessibility of programs and the understanding of educational staff on parent engagement and child mental health; strategies for program development, promotion and delivery; as well as strategies for increasing parent and community engagement. This study offers a set of consensus strategies for improving the uptake of parent education programs within family-school partnership.

A tailored online intervention to improve parenting risk and protective factors for child anxiety and depression: Medium-term findings from a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Despite considerable evidence on parenting risk and protective factors for child anxiety and depressive disorders, the development of interventions based on this evidence is still lagging behind. To address this gap, the web-based Parenting Resilient Kids (PaRK) program was developed to target these risk and protective factors. This study evaluated the effects of the program at 12-month follow-up. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial was conducted with a community sample of 355 parents and 342 children (Mchild age = 9.79). Parents randomized into the web-based PaRK intervention condition received a personalized feedback report about their parenting and were recommended a tailored course of up to 12 interactive modules. Parents in the control condition received a standard set of web-based educational factsheets. RESULTS: Parents in the intervention group demonstrated significantly greater improvement in self-reported parenting compared to control group parents from baseline to 12-month follow-up, d = 0.24, 95% CI [0.03, 0.45]. Both groups showed reductions in child anxiety and depressive symptoms, parental psychological control and unhealthy family functioning; and improvements in parental acceptance, child- and parent- health-related quality of life. LIMITATIONS: The PaRK intervention was tailored based on the parents' own report of their parenting behaviors. There was an over-representation of highly-educated mothers and only one parent-child dyad was included per family. CONCLUSIONS: PaRK improved parenting for up to 12 months, but had no superior effect on children's mental health outcomes compared with an educational-factsheet intervention. Further follow-up is needed to assess longer-term effects.

Development and evaluation of the Parenting to Reduce Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (PaRCADS): assessment of parental concordance with guidelines for the prevention of child anxiety and depression.

BACKGROUND: Involving parents in the prevention of mental health problems in children is prudent given their fundamental role in supporting their child's development. However, few measures encapsulate the range of risk and protective factors for child anxiety and depression that parents can potentially modify. The Parenting to Reduce Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (PaRCADS) was developed as a criterion-referenced measure to assess parenting against a set of evidence-based parenting guidelines for the prevention of child anxiety and depressive disorders. METHODS: In Study 1, 355 parents of children 8-11 years old across Australia completed the PaRCADS and measures of parenting, general family functioning, child anxiety and depressive symptoms, and parent and child health-related quality of life. Their children completed measures of parenting, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and health-related quality of life. In Study 2, six subject-experts independently evaluated the PaRCADS items for item-objective congruence and item-relevance. Item analysis was conducted by examining item-total point-biserial correlation, difficulty index, B-index, and expert-rated content validity indices. Reliability (or dependability) was assessed by agreement coefficients for single administration. Construct validity was examined by correlational analyses with other measures. RESULTS: Four items were removed to yield a 79-item, 10-subscale PaRCADS. Reliability estimates for the subscale and total score range from .74 to .94. Convergent validity was indicated by moderate to strong correlations with other parenting and family functioning measures, and discriminant validity was supported by small to moderate correlations with a measure of parents' health-related quality of life. Higher scores on the PaRCADS were associated with fewer anxiety and depressive symptoms and better health-related quality of life in the child. PaRCADS total score was associated with parental age, parent reported child's history of mental health diagnosis and child's current mental health problem. DISCUSSION: Results showed that the PaRCADS demonstrates adequate psychometric properties that provide initial support for its use as a measure of parenting risk and protective factors for child anxiety and depression. The scale may be used for intervention and evaluative purposes in preventive programs and research.

Parenting Resilient Kids (PaRK), an online parenting program to prevent anxiety and depression problems in primary school-aged children: Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Preventive efforts targeting childhood anxiety and depression symptoms have the potential to alter the developmental trajectory of depression and anxiety disorders across the lifespan. Substantial previous research suggests that modifiable parenting factors such as parental aversiveness and over-involvement are associated with childhood anxiety, depressive and internalising symptoms, indicating that parents can play a critical role in prevention. The Parenting Resilient Kids study is a new evidence-based online parenting program designed to prevent anxiety and depression problems in primary school-aged children by reducing family-based risk factors and enhancing protective factors through increased positive interactions between parent and child. METHODS/DESIGN: The current study is a parallel group superiority randomised controlled trial with parent-child dyads randomised to the intervention or active-control group in a 1:1 ratio. The intervention group will receive the Parenting Resilient Kids program consisting of a feedback report on parenting behaviours and up to 12 interactive online modules personalised based on responses to the parent survey. The active-control group will receive a standardised package of online educational materials about child development and wellbeing. The trial website is programmed to run a stratified random allocation sequence (based on parent gender) to determine group membership. We aim to recruit 340 parent-child dyads (170 dyads per group). We hypothesise that the intervention group will show greater improvement in parenting risk and protective factors from baseline to 3-month follow-up (primary outcome), which will in turn mediate changes in child depressive and anxiety symptoms from baseline to 12 and 24 months (co-primary outcomes). We also hypothesise that the intervention group will show greater benefits from baseline to 3-, 12- and 24-month follow-up, with regard to: child depressive and anxiety symptoms (co-primary outcomes); and child and parent health-related quality of life, and overall family functioning (secondary outcomes). DISCUSSION: This randomised controlled trial will examine the efficacy of the Parenting Resilient Kids program as a preventive intervention for anxiety and depression symptoms in primary school-aged children, as well as changes in child and parent health-related quality of life. Findings from this study will examine design features that render web-based prevention programs effective and the extent to which parents can be engaged and motivated to change through a minimally guided parenting program. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR): Trial ID ACTRN12616000621415 Registered on 13 May 2016. Updated on 3 March 2017.