Designing and evaluating a web-based parenting intervention Dawn Owen Centre for Evidence Based Early Intervention Supervisors: Professor Judy Hutchings.

Designing and evaluating a web-based parenting

intervention

Dawn Owen

Centre for Evidence Based Early Intervention

Supervisors: Professor Judy Hutchings and Dr Nia Griffith

Conduct Disorder

• “A repetitive and persistent pattern of behaviour in which the basic rights of others, or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules, are violated”, (DSM-IV, 1994)

• General behaviour problems are the most common reasons why children are referred to Children’s Mental Health Services (Hutchings, Lane & Kelly, 2004)

• Between 7-20% of children meet the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder (Webster-Stratton & Hammond, 1998)

Impact of Conduct Disorder

• 50% of mothers of children referred for treatment for behavioural difficulties show levels of depression within the clinical range (Hutchings, Appleton, Smith, Lane & Nash, 2002)

• Mothers who suffer from clinical depression exhibit symptoms associated with the development of conduct disorder (Webster-Stratton, 1998)

• Increased rates of maternal depression also result in significant relationship problems within the family, which in turn can cause or exacerbate child behaviour problems (Hutchings & Nash, 1998)

Parental factors associated with Conduct Disorder

• Maternal depression

• Poor parental problem solving & observational skills

• Socioeconomic status

• Poverty

• Single-parent status - divorce

• Parents reinforcing problem behaviour

(Coercive Family Process)

Traditional behavioural intervention pose barriers to treatment…

• Transportation

• Dropping out of treatment (attrition)

• Maintenance of behaviour change

• Generalisation of skills

• Sufficient training of healthcare professionals to deliver behaviour-based practice

• Stigma associated with seeking professional help

• Increased parental response effort

Advantages of web-based interventions

• Majority of the population have access to the internet

• Internet can reach harder-to-reach families

• Can tailor interventions to suit individual family circumstances

• More support outside the clinical setting

• Can practice essential skills in the home environment

• More than one parent can engage with the intervention

• Choice of when to participate

The Little Parent Handbook Intervention

(Hutchings, 2013)

• Core behavioural principles

• A focus on positive parenting

• Chapters include: Encouraging your child’s positive behaviour, and teaching new behaviours to our children

• Transfer core behavioural principles into a web-based parenting intervention and evaluate effectiveness

• Participants will read weekly chapters and complete an online quiz at the end of each chapter

• Videos and images will be used to supplement the reading material

LifeGuide Software

• Developed by a Computer Scientist and a Social Psychologist at the University of Southampton

• Includes many advantageous features such as tailored advice based on individual responses, immediate feedback, e-mail reminders, graph production of quiz results and elimination of traditional treatment barriers such as transport (Yang et al., 2009)

• https://www.lifeguideonline.org/

What’s next?

• Revise the LifeGuide Manual and begin transferring the parenting intervention from PowerPoint to LifeGuide

• Approach Health Visitors for recruitment

• Complete Bangor University and NHS Research Ethics

• Complete 2 chapters of my thesis

1. Behavioural interventions for children with Conduct Disorder

2. How the principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) are used in web-based behavioural interventions for children with Conduct Disorder

Thank you very much for listening…

Any questions?