Online parenting guidelines to prevent adolescent depression and anxiety: Evaluating user characteristics and usefulness

Abstract

Findings suggest that the online guidelines may be a useful and sustainable universal prevention strategy for parents of adolescents.

Partners in Parenting: A Multi-Level Web-Based Approach to Support Parents in Prevention and Early Intervention for Adolescent Depression and Anxiety

“…A recent study evaluating user perceptions of the Guidelines indicated high levels of satisfaction, and the majority of users endorsed the potential value of Web-based parenting interventions based on the guidelines. Most parent users also reported attempting to make changes in their parenting as a result of reading the Guidelines [ 51 ]. Albeit a preliminary and uncontrolled evaluation study, these findings suggest the utility of the Guidelines as a basic, universal prevention strategy for parents of adolescents.…”

“…Given the evidence base [ 23 ] and expert endorsement [ 63 ] supporting these recommendations, we postulate that when parents apply these strategies, they are taking preventive actions that are likely to benefit their child’s mental health. Given preliminary evidence that accessing these guidelines was sufficient to prompt some behavior change in parents [ 51 ], these guidelines represent a promising minimal-cost universal prevention strategy for parents of adolescents. This minimal intervention is likely to be sufficient for parents who are highly motivated, educated, and have higher parental self-efficacy and parenting competence and whose child is generally functioning well (ie, no known risk or current concern).…”

“…This minimal intervention is likely to be sufficient for parents who are highly motivated, educated, and have higher parental self-efficacy and parenting competence and whose child is generally functioning well (ie, no known risk or current concern). The Guidelines can serve as a benchmark for parents, providing reminders of strategies to maintain, increase, or reduce, a toolkit to draw from as required, as well as an assurance that they are “on the right track” [ 51 ].…”

“…Due to the increasing individuation from parents that emerges during adolescence [ 75 ] and a corresponding clinical imperative to promote independence and self-reliance in adolescents, parents are commonly less involved in treatment with their adolescent than they are with younger children. Inevitably, this can leave concerned parents feeling excluded from their child’s care, disempowered and helpless about how they can best manage their child’s condition outside the clinic, and frustrated when they are unable to access support for themselves from the child’s clinician [ 51 , 76 ]. Various systemic factors may also contribute to this, including the funding structure of public mental health services being directed at individuals rather than families, the professional competencies of youth mental health clinicians being limited to working with individual clients rather than the family system, and a largely overloaded and reactive mental health system.…”

“…A Web-based parenting program also complements the use of the Internet as a popular source of information on mental health and parenting [ 7 , 50 ]. Moreover, a recent Web-based survey suggests that the majority of parents would find such a program useful [ 51 ].…”