Since its emergence in December 2019, COVID-19 has reshaped the world. Mental health problems are predicted to rise dramatically as a secondary effect of the disease and measures put in place to contain it. Our emerging evidence shows parents of young children have not been spared from these effects and are experiencing 4-fold increases depression and anxiety. Young children are highly vulnerable to parent mental illness due to their reliance on caregivers to meet basic needs. Interventions are needed that consider the unique mental health and parenting challenges families are encountering during the pandemic. Our team of mental health and program development experts will address these needs through an online psychoeducation and social-connection platform, BEAM: Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health. BEAM brings together best practices in online telehealth programs in a highly personalized and interactive format to address multiple family needs. With clinical research investigators across provinces, the BEAM pilot project will provide services to 60 mothers (30 per group) of 6-36 month old children in Manitoba and Alberta.
Families are facing unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging evidence from our recent family research shows elevated rates of maternal depression in parents of 0-5-year-old children, compared to pre-pandemic cohorts with similar demographic profiles. In our combined data of over 3000 families of 0 to 5-year-old children, 37-48% of mothers were classified as depressed, based on child age group, with 65% of depressed mothers also experiencing anxiety. In early childhood, exposure to maternal mental illness predicts risk for children's own mental health problems, developmental delays, asthma, and injury risk. For mothers themselves, depression contributes to health problems and low quality of life. Notably, these harms are most pronounced when depression persists, highlighting the importance of intervening early to prevent intergenerational health impairments. Although evidence-based treatments exist to address maternal mental illness, there are high barriers to accessing care due to COVID-19. These include physical distancing, high costs of individual therapy, closure of existing services, and overwhelming childcare demands. Only 5% of mothers in our sample with depression report accessing services in the past month. The parenting stress associated with maternal depression is established to lead to low-quality interactions and harsh discipline, which is particularly concerning with children are spending nearly all their time at home. Addressing these intergenerational health concerns will require innovative program design methods to simultaneously treat maternal mental illness and address parenting risks. We have developed the Building Emotional Awareness \& Mental Health (BEAM) program to immediately address these needs. Investing in maternal mental health now, before problems are entrenched, is expected to yield high health and economic benefits by preventing the long-term consequences of maternal depression from becoming embedded in children's biological and behavioural development. Our team of mental health, parenting, and program development experts will address these needs through an online psycho-education and social-connection platform. There are 3 objectives for this study: 1. Support maternal mental wellness and parenting stress by creating an interactive psychoeducation \& social connection online platform. 2. Evaluate the acceptability of the app and integrate parent feedback 3. Determine the potential benefits of BEAM on maternal and child well-being.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
60
The BEAM program is a novel mobile app-based therapeutic intervention that incorporates key parenting concepts and Unified Protocol (UP) therapy modules with clinician-facilitated peer social support and connection. The primary aim of the program is to improve symptoms of depression and promote a positive parent-child relationship. There are three main components of the program: 1) the UP content, which will target maternal mental health symptomology, 2) the parenting skills training content, which is designed to correspond to the UP modules and promote maternal responsivity to children's emotions, and 3) a closed online community forum to encourage social support and connection between participants of the program.
The University of Manitoba - Department of Psychology
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
RECRUITINGChange in Maternal Depression - Patient Health Questionnaire
Depression will be assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire, a 9-item questionnaire will be used to measure depression presence and severity (mild to severe).
Time frame: PHQ-9 to be completed during eligibility screening, at T1 before starting the BEAM program, weekly for 10 weeks, at the end of the program (T2; 10 weeks), and at follow-up (T3; 18 weeks)
Change in Parenting Stress - Parent Daily Report
Parenting stress will be assessed with the Parent Daily Report, a scale which contains 12 items assessing the presence of difficult child behaviours and whether they were stressful for parents.
Time frame: PDR to be completed at T1 before starting the BEAM Program, weekly for 10 weeks, at the end of the program (T2; 10 weeks), and at follow-up (T3; 18 weeks)
Change in Family Relationship Quality
We will assess parent-child relationship quality and parenting strategies used by mothers through a collection of validated questionnaires (e.g., Parenting Stress Index, Parenting Scale), and the Couples Satisfaction Index will examine co-parent relationship quality in 2-parent households.
Time frame: To be assessed before starting the BEAM Program (T1), at the end of the program (T2; 10 weeks), and at follow-up (T3; 18 weeks)
Change in Child and Family Function
A variety of questionnaires will support the collection of data pertaining to child and family function, including other maternal mental health symptoms and psychological functioning(e.g., emotion regulation, anxiety, anger, self-compassion) , child mental health and behaviour (e.g., Child Behaviour Checklist), and the family environment (e.g., child and parent screen-time). All questionnaires are standardized and well-validated
Time frame: To be assessed before starting the BEAM Program (T1), at the end of the program (T2; 10 weeks), and at follow-up (T3; 18 weeks)
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