The objective of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of an online intervention (the Parents Support Program) aimed at increasing supportive behaviors among parents of transgender youth. The intervention consists of three modules that include a variety engaging activities such as social perspective taking exercises, writing prompts, videos of parents, youth, and experts, and psycho-educational materials. The study uses an experimental design with a waitlist control. Both the experimental and control groups will complete a pre-test, one month follow up, and two month follow up survey. Targeted outcomes include knowledge about gender diversity, attitudes about trans youth, and supportive parenting behaviors.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
570
The parent support program includes three modules aimed at increasing knowledge, positive attitudes, and supportive behaviors towards trans youth. Each online module includes several activities including writing prompts, videos, interactive quizzes, and other educational activities.
Palo Alto University
Palo Alto, California, United States
Trans-supportive behaviors scale
This 20 item questionnaire measures the frequency of supportive behaviors enacted in the past month. Response options ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (frequently) based on item anchors from the Ryan et al. (2010) measure on family acceptance. The original 25-item scale was reduced to 20 items based on achieving adequate internal consistency reliability in a previous study with parents of trans youth (Matsuno \& Israel, in preparation). An example item is: "I told my child I respect and support them." The measure showed adequate internal consistency reliability in the pilot study of the Parent Support Program (α = .8).
Time frame: One month
Attitudes Toward Trans Youth Scale (ATTYS - Birnkrant, 2018)
Two subscales of the original scale were used consisting of 27 items- Genderism, and Fabricated Identity. The scale had strong reliablity α = .98 and demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity.
Time frame: One month
Objective knowledge about gender diversity
The author created a 18-item measure designed to test knowledge about constructs of gender and experiences of transgender people. The items are based on the program content and through best practices for creating multiple choice questions.
Time frame: One month
Subjective knowledge about gender diversity
Participants perceptions of their own level knowledge regarding gender diversity will be measured using a 100-point Likert scale from 1 - not at all knowledgeable to 100- extremely knowledgeable. Participants will be asked to rate their perceived knowledge in the following areas: gender terminology, etiology, medical intervention, and impact of parental acceptance.
Time frame: One month
Self-compassion
Self-compassion was measured by adapting the self-kindness subscale of the Self-Compassion Scale - Short Form (SCS-SF) (Raes, Pommier, Neff, \& Van Gucht, 2011). The subscale demonstrated adequate reliability in a previous sample (α = .78) (Raes et al., 2011). The five items were adapted by adding "as a parent of a trans/non-binary child" at the end of each item to measure self-compassion related to parenting a trans child. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always). The measure showed strong internal consistency reliability in the pilot study of the Parent Support Program (α = .94).
Time frame: One month
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