Recruiting

Parent Education Program

Sponsor:

Massachusetts General Hospital

Code:

NCT07153250

Conditions

Anxiety Disorders

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Project EMPOWER

Being Brave Parent Education

Sharing Feelings

Study Details

Brief summary:

The investigators are doing this research to test whether parents of children ages 2-7 can better manage their child's anxiety by completing a brief, online, self-guided parent education program. One way to provide anxiety management skills to more children, and to potentially prevent worsening outcomes, is to offer online and self-guided educational programs that parents can complete without a clinician. This randomized trial will evaluate the effects of two brief, online, self-guided parent education programs designed to improve parents' understanding of anxiety and teach parents way to help their children cope with anxiety. Parents will be randomly assigned to one of the three programs. The main aim of the study is to examine whether the parent programs, compared to an educational control reduce parental accommodation of anxiety across a 1-, 4-, and 8-month follow-up period. As a secondary aim, the investigators will explore whether the parent programs reduce children's anxiety symptoms over the 8-month follow-up period. Results will inform the development of a scalable, low-cost model for promoting access to evidence-based treatment to young children.

Conditions

Anxiety Disorders

Study ID

NCT07153250

Start date

Sep 1, 2025

Status verified date

Aug, 2025

Completion date

Aug, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Aug, 2027

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

Parents will be eligible to participate if:

1. Their child is between the age of 2 and 7 years-old
2. Their child scores in the elevated range on an age-approrpiate anxiety screening measure
3. Parents are English-speaking
4. Parents are over the age of 18 years old

Exclusion Criteria:

Parents will be excluded if:

(1) Their child shows symptoms of suicidal or homicidal ideation, psychosis, or primary severe mood or behavior disorder (i.e., if treatment for another disorder other than anxiety is indicate prior to treatment for anxiety)

Study Design

Enrollment

90 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Project Empower

This program is a web-based, self-administered program for parents that takes about 20 minutes to complete. The program includes 5 elements based on the components of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

experimental: Being Brave

This program is an online, self-guided program which consists of three brief video-recorded lessons (approximately 20 minutes each) with accompanying knowledge checks and workbook on implementing parent-directed cognitive-behavioral therapy.

sham comparator: Sharing Feelings

This program is an online, self-guided 20-minute program, that teaches parents about the importance of sharing feelings and about helpful versus unhelpful expression of emotion.

Interventions

Project EMPOWER

Project EMPOWER is a web-based, self-administered program for parents that takes about 20 minutes to complete.

Being Brave Parent Education

Being Brave Parent Education is an online, self-guided program which consists of three brief video-recorded lessons (approximately 20 minutes each) with accompanying knowledge checks and workbook on implementing parent-directed cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Sharing Feelings

A self-guided 20-minute educational control, that teaches parents about the importance of sharing feelings and about helpful versus unhelpful expression of emotion.

Primary outcome measure

  • Change in Pediatric Accommodation Scale, Parent-Report [ Time Frame: Change over 8-month follow-up (Baseline to 1-month, 4-month, and 8-month follow-up) ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Locations

Massachusetts General Hospital

Recruiting

Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02114

More Information

Sponsor

Massachusetts General Hospital

Last update posted

Sep 29, 2025

Last verified

Aug, 2025

Keywords

  • Anxiety
  • Parenting
  • Online Intervention
  • Child Mental Health

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Massachusetts General Hospital on 2025-09-29.