Exploring the Role of Parental Emotion Regulation and Outcomes of Parental Emotional Coaching on Child and Adolescent Psychosocial Outcomes

NCT06588985 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: NUS-IRB-2023-859
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 200
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Emotional regulation has been found to play a crucial role in an individual's mental well-being and emotional dysregulation is implicated in most of psychiatric disorders listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) (APA, 2013; Gross \& Levenson, 1997; Thoits, 1985). Specifically in children, poor emotional regulation skills and parental emotional dysregulation contribute significantly to childhood psychopathology (Han \& Shaffer, 2014). This study has two parts - Part 1 aims to explore and identify the parental emotion socialization factors that contributes to a child's emotion regulation abilities and examine how parental emotion dysregulation contribute to the profile of a child's emotional and behavioral difficulties; Part 2 attempts to determine the effectiveness of parental emotional coaching in developing a child's emotion regulation abilities and reducing a child's symptoms of psychopathology. Participants will include both nonclinical and clinical samples, consisting of children and adolescents, aged 7 to 17 years old (middle childhood to adolescence) and their parents. Participants will be invited to complete a set of questionnaires (Part 1) and to participate in a randomized controlled trial that provides parents with a workshop on emotion coaching skills (Part 2). Data will be analysed using correlation,regression analyses and mixed Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Clinical implications from this study includes, informing of improvements to the clinical services provided in the healthcare setting, as well as contribute to the transdiagnostic formulation of children and adolescent mental health conditions.

Conditions

Emotion Regulation

Keywords

Emotion Coaching

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (3)

• Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003)

  ERQ is a self-report questionnaire designed to measure an individual's tendency to regulate their emotions in 2 ways: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. There are 10 items, and each item is rated on a 7-point Likert scale of 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). The scores of each scale will be calculated separately and the higher a score on a scale indicates higher tendency for the individual to use the specific method to regulate their emotions.

  Baseline, 1-month after baseline and at least 2-months after baseline

• Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA; Gullone & Taffe, 2011)

  ERQ-CA is adapted from the ERQ for adults to be used to measure a child's tendency to regulate their emotions on the 2 scales: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Similar to the ERQ, it has 10 items rated on a 7-point Likert Scale (from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree)). Higher scores on each scale indicates higher tendency to use the corresponding method to regulate their emotions. The ERQ-CA demonstrated sound internal consistency, as well as sound construct and convergent validity (Gullone \& Taffe, 2011).

  Baseline, 1-month after baseline and at least 2-months after baseline

• Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004)

  DERS is a 36-item self-report questionnaire that measure the types of emotion regulation and dysregulation an individual might experience. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (Almost Never) to 5 (Almost Always). The items measure how often the individual might engage in each of the behaviours or have specific thoughts. The items can be grouped into 6 subscales: nonacceptance of emotional responses, difficulty engaging in goal-directed behaviour, impulse control difficulties, lack of emotional awareness, limited access to emotional regulation strategies, and lack of emotional clarity. The scores are added up and higher scores indicate greater problems with emotion regulation. The DERS was found to have good internal consistency, test-retest reliability and adequate construct and predictive validity (Gratz \& Roemer, 2004).

  Baseline, 1-month after baseline and at least 2-months after baseline

Secondary Outcomes (5)

• Depression Anxiety Stress Scales short version (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995)

  Baseline, 1-month after baseline and at least 2-months after baseline

• Parent Sense of Competency (PSOC; Gilmore & Cuskelly, 2008)

  Baseline, 1-month after baseline and at least 2-months after baseline

• Parent Relationship Questionnaire (PRQ; Kamphaus & Reynolds, 2006)

  Baseline, 1-month after baseline and at least 2-months after baseline

• Security Scale questionnaire (SSQ; Kerns et al., 1996)

  BBaseline, 1-month after baseline and at least 2-months after baseline

• Big-Five Questionnaire for Children (BFQ-C; Barbaranelli et al., 2003)

  Baseline only

Study Arms (2)

Emotion Coaching Treatment Group

EXPERIMENTAL

Parents of the parent-child dyad in this group, will attend 1 3-hour parent workshop on emotion coaching. Followed by 2 biweekly phone consultations with a clinical psychologist.

Behavioral: Emotion Coaching Parent Training Workshop

Waitlist Control Group

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

In this group, questionnaires/data will be collected, but no treatment will be given. Only after they have submitted all data, then they will be invited to participate in the above Emotion Coaching parent workshop and phone consultations.

Behavioral: Waitlist Control

Interventions

Emotion Coaching Parent Training Workshop BEHAVIORAL

Parents will attend a 3-hour online workshop that introduces the fundamentals of emotion coaching and the phone consultations will be used to help parents troubleshoot and brainstorm application of the workshop content.

Emotion Coaching Treatment Group

Waitlist Control BEHAVIORAL

Parents will only receive the parent workshop and phone consultations after they have completed all the required questionnaires.

Waitlist Control Group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 7 Years - 17 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• Participants include children and adolescents aged 7 to 17 years old, and one of their parents.
• All parent-child dyads will be invited to participate.
• Parents and children have to be fluent in English.
• Persons who are not parents will not be recruited.

You may not qualify if:

• Children or parents with physical impairments (apart from corrected vision) will be excluded.
• Children or parents reporting psychotic symptoms, neurodevelopmental disorders, or severe mood disorders will be excluded.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National University of Singapore: lead
• Ministry of Education, Singapore: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

National University of Singapore

Singapore, 117570, Singapore

RECRUITING

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Emotional Regulation

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Self-Control; Social Behavior; Behavior

Study Officials

• Jamie Ong

  National University of Singapore

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Jamie Ong

CONTACT

65161143; psyoj@nus.edu.sg

Ryan Hong

CONTACT

65166120; ryan.hong@nus.edu.sg

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Masking Details: Participants do not know which group they are assigned to.
• Purpose: SUPPORTIVE CARE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Instructor

Model Details: Participants will be randomly assigned to either the treatment group or waitlist control group.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: September 4, 2024
• First Posted: September 19, 2024
• Study Start: May 24, 2024
• Primary Completion: May 24, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): May 24, 2026
• Last Updated: September 19, 2024

Record last verified: 2024-09

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

SG (1)