Fathers experienced high rates of mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social support is crucial to mitigate these problems; however, access to and quality of support were impacted by public health guidelines to increase physical distancing. Online forums offer an avenue for peer connection and support. Yet, minimal research has examined forum use during COVID-19. The objective of the current study was to examine the experiences and support needs of fathers during the pandemic through an exploratory qualitative content analysis of an online social support forum. Posts ( N = 299) and comments ( N = 2597) on Reddit’s sub-forum r/daddit (July and October 2020) were systematically analysed through a Framework Analytic Approach. Findings highlighted five main themes (with subthemes): forum use, family functioning, psychological and health factors, interpersonal functioning, and COVID-19. Findings underscore the critical need for mental health and parenting programs tailored to fathers and informing services to support father and family wellbeing.

BACKGROUND:Online programs serve as an important avenue for delivering mental health and parenting services worldwide. The quantity of online programs proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic with developers emphasizing the potential to improve accessibility and reduce barriers of in-person programming (e.g., arranging transportation, childcare, and scheduling). However, Canadian parents' and caregivers' preferences for features they desire in online family mental health supports are unknown. Understanding these preferences would better allow for the creation of programs that are best suited to meet parents' needs. Thus, the present study examined parent mental health program preferences, barriers to access, and how different sociodemographic factors predicted preferences for aspects such as program features (e.g., duration delivery format). METHODS:Self-report surveys were administered in 2023 via the online crowdsourcing platform AskingCanadians to parents and primary caregivers of children ages 0 to 5 years. Descriptive statistics examined parent mental health program preferences and barriers. Regression models examined sociodemographic predictors of these preferences and barriers. RESULTS:Participants identified a range of preferences across program structure and coaching, as well as challenges associated with program access. Parents most preferred programs with a web-based delivery format (72%), a duration of 2-4 weeks (27%), and psychologists as program coaches (51.4%). The most highly endorsed barriers were lack of time (42.2%) and limited internet access (25.1%). Sociodemographic factors including parent gender, household income, education, and ethnicity also consistently predicted preference for various program characteristics. CONCLUSIONS:This research provides an important first step toward creating more accessible online mental health and parent mental health programs by ensuring the voices of the parents who will use these services are heard in program development and adaptation. Future research should investigate how to address accessibility and inclusivity barriers to participating in parent mental health programs for diverse families based on their differential preferences.

Children are highly sensitive to adversity during their first five years of life, with exposure to chronic parental mental illness (MI) consistently linked to socio-emotional impairments and mental health problems in children. Children born during the COVID-19 pandemic were exposed to unprecedented levels of parental distress, with parental MI reported at three times the pre-pandemic rates. This situation underscored a pressing need for scalable solutions to foster positive mental health and developmental outcomes for a generation of children. In response, we developed the Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM) program, an innovative mobile health (mHealth) solution for parents of young children. Clinical trials to date evaluating BEAM have shown promising results, demonstrating reductions in parent depression, suicidality, anxiety, and harsh parenting practices. This trial involves an effectiveness-implementation hybrid design with co-primary aims of (1) determining BEAM’s effectiveness in improving parent mental health, and (2) evaluating the implementation of BEAM in the community through metrics such as feasibility, acceptability, and uptake. This trial’s secondary aim is to measure BEAM’s effectiveness in improving short-term child mental health and developmental outcomes using primary data and long-term psychosocial family outcomes using administrative data. A final exploratory aim of this trial will measure the cost-utility of delivering BEAM relative to extant health programming. A single arm trial with repeated measures will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing the BEAM intervention in the community with a sample of 400 parent participants with a child aged 24–71 months. Participants must self-report moderate to severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, parenting stress, and/or anger at time of enrolment (T0) and live in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Individuals will be recruited through four streams including the (1) Manitoba Crisis Response Services, (2) primary care offices (paediatricians and/or general practitioners), (3) Manitoba family community organizations and child care centres, and (4) social media. Study participants will complete 12 weeks of psychoeducation modules, with access to an online social support forum and check ins with a peer coach. Assessments of parent and child mental health symptoms will occur at pre-test before BEAM begins (T1), immediately after the last week of the BEAM intervention (post-test, T2), 6-month follow-up (T3), and 12-month follow-up (T4). The BEAM program offers a promising solution to address elevated parental mental health symptoms, parenting stress, and related child functioning concerns. The present implementation trial aims to extend the groundwork established by an open pilot trial and RCT of the BEAM program, in a next step of testing BEAM’s readiness for nationwide scaling. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06455397. Registered on June 11, 2024.

Despite the promising link between self-compassion and health behaviors, less is known about the relationship between self-compassion and physical activity (PA) performed for health (e.g., exercise) or psychological constructs that could plausibly mediate this relationship. This scoping review maps research examining the relationship between self-compassion, PA, and psychological antecedents of PA. A peer-reviewed search strategy was run through OVID MEDLINE(R) and APA PsycInfo in 2020, 2021, and 2023. We hand searched the https://selfcompassion.org repository and the reference lists of included studies and nine subject-relevant reviews. Eligible studies used any quantitative design, were published in English after 2003, and examined self-compassion in the context of PA or PA-related self-regulation, affect, motivation, or self-efficacy among participants aged 10 years or older. Studies examining sport and athletics were excluded. Article screening was conducted independently and in duplicate by two reviewers. Data extraction was divided evenly between the two reviewers. The search yielded 4,612 articles. After screening, N = 43 independent samples (n = 27 cross-sectional, n = 6 prospective, n = 4 randomized trials, n = 4 nonrandomized trials, n = 2 single-session experiments) were included representing 18,478 participants. Consistent support was found for the relationship between self-compassion and PA-related self-regulation, affect, motivation, and self-efficacy. Inconsistent support was found for the association between self-compassion and PA behavior. Insufficient evidence was available to determine whether self-compassion can be intervened upon to increase PA. Our findings suggest that self-compassion may support psychological variables that contribute to PA engagement or maintenance. Five recommendations for future intervention development are provided.

Background: Access to mental health care is limited by financial, time, and resource restraints. Massive open online interventions (MOOIs), a form of online self-directed mental health interventions, work to address these barriers by providing evidence-based interventions to many individuals at little to no cost. The present meta-analysis and systematic review aimed to assess the efficacy of MOOIs to inform the development of future MOOIs for mental health. Methods: Following the Preferred Reporting for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic review of research investigating fully online and self-directed mental health interventions was conducted within the PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, and Academic Search Complete databases. Random effect models were used to calculate pooled effect sizes using mean differences for mental health outcomes to determine the efficacy of MOOIs. Person-level (age, gender, continental location) and program-level (control type, inclusion criteria, therapeutic orientation, treatment components, treatment format, time to follow-up, treatment duration) moderators were examined with mixed-effect or meta-regression models. Results: The meta-analysis included 31 articles with 10397 participants. MOOIs (n = 5235) were more effective at reducing mental health symptoms versus controls (n = 5162). Small intervention effect sizes were observed for anxiety, depression, sleep, and stress at post-treatment. At follow-up, all mental health outcomes were null. Subgroup analyses indicated studies had a larger effect size at post-treatment if they had an inactive control (vs. active), were conducted in Europe (vs. other continental locations), and delivered the intervention through web-based formats (vs. mobile applications). No other moderators were significant. Conclusions: This meta-analysis demonstrates the positive potential impact of MOOIs in reducing mental health symptomology across various populations. However, due to the limited findings, it cannot be concluded which intervention components led to the most favourable outcomes and for whom may benefit most from MOOIs. Further research should investigate which aspects of MOOIs lead to meaningful results to help design and implement more effective self-directed online interventions.

Measures of stress reactivity and coping are critical in developmental research inchildren. Such measures assist in identifying psycho-physiological abnormalities andaid in developing interventions to avoid outcomes associated with prolonged stress.Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, measures of stress reactivity and coping were almost exclusively assessed through in-person laboratory studies. Given the importance of stress reactivity research on mitigating adverse developmental outcomes in children it was crucial to continue this research during the pandemic through pivoting to online virtual assessments. The current paper presents guidelines and lessons learned from our team’s transition from in person to virtual assessments with young children. Key learnings across a variety of areas, such as family engagement, optimal logistics of virtual assessments, and how to best adapt stress-reactivity measures at a distance are presented.

Mothers with young children were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Maternal rates of clinically significant depression rapidly increased while mental health services simultaneously became less accessible. In response, we designed a novel app-based intervention, Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM), to address mental health concerns and promote supportive parenting in mothers. A total of 70 mothers participated in the BEAM pilot. Following completing the program, participants were invited to share feedback about their experience in BEAM through focus groups and a post-intervention questionnaire. The current study comprised a thematic analysis of qualitative focus group (n = 11) and questionnaire data (n = 40). Results demonstrate how participants were supported and benefited from the program (e.g., peer community, learning new skills and strategies) and suggestions for improvement. Findings highlight the acceptability of the BEAM program and can inform the development of future mental health app-based programs and services.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, new parents were disproportionately affected by public health restrictions changing service accessibility and increasing stressors. However, minimal research has examined pandemic-related stressors and experiences of perinatal fathers in naturalistic anonymous settings. An important and novel way parents seek connection and information is through online forums, which increased during COVID-19. The current study qualitatively analyzed the experiences of perinatal fathers from September to December 2020 through the Framework Analytic Approach to identify unmet support needs during COVID-19 using the online forum predaddit on reddit. Five main themes in the thematic framework included forum use, COVID-19, psychosocial distress, family functioning, and child health and development, each with related subthemes. Findings highlight the utility of predaddit as a source of information for, and interactions of, fathers to inform mental health services. Overall, fathers used the forum to engage with other fathers during a time of social isolation and for support during the transition to parenthood. This manuscript highlights the unmet support needs of fathers during the perinatal period and the importance of including fathers in perinatal care, implementing routine perinatal mood screening for both parents, and developing programs to support fathers during this transition to promote family wellbeing.

Our industry insight focuses on the challenges for health researchers collaborating with communication designers during the development of an App for improving maternal mental health and parenting stress. We discuss the challenges around explicating and communicating tacit and domain knowledge across disciplinary boundaries. We believe this report can widen communication design's traditional focus on users in mHealth research to consider partnerships with academic researchers. The lessons learned from our experience developing a mHealth program can be used to reduce challenges in future mHealth research, especially for collaborations between health researchers and communications designers. Considering the growth of interest in mHealth, this is extremely relevant for future team satisfaction, the optimal use of research funds and industry time, and faster development of effective mHealth tools.

Background The prevalence of maternal depression and anxiety has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and pregnant individuals are experiencing concerningly elevated levels of mental health symptoms worldwide. Many individuals may now be at heightened risk of postpartum mental health disorders. There are significant concerns that a cohort of children may be at-risk for impaired self-regulation and mental illness due to elevated exposure to perinatal mental illness. With both an increased prevalence of depression and limited availability of services due to the pandemic, there is an urgent need for accessible eHealth interventions for mothers of young children. The aims of this trial are to evaluate the efficacy of the Building Emotion Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM) app-based program for reducing maternal depression symptoms (primary outcome) and improve anxiety symptoms, parenting stress, family relationships, and mother and child functioning (secondary outcomes) compared to treatment as usual (TAU). Methods A two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) with repeated measures will be used to evaluate the efficacy of the BEAM intervention compared to TAU among a sample of 140 mothers with children aged 18 to 36 months, who self-report moderate-to-severe symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. Individuals will be recruited online, and those randomized to the treatment group will participate in 10 weeks of psychoeducation modules, an online social support forum, and weekly group teletherapy sessions. Assessments will occur at 18–36 months postpartum (pre-test, T1), immediately after the last week of the BEAM intervention (post-test, T2), and at 3 months after the intervention (follow-up, T3). Discussion eHealth interventions have the potential to address elevated maternal mental health symptoms, parenting stress, and child functioning concerns during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and to provide accessible programming to mothers who are in need of support. This RCT will build on an open pilot trial of the BEAM program and provide further evaluation of this evidence-based intervention. Findings will increase our understanding of depression in mothers with young children and reveal the potential for long-term improvements in maternal and child health and family well-being. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05306626 . Registered on April 1, 2022

Self-compassion predicts mothers' engagement in health behaviours yet some mothers fear self-compassion. We examined relationships between both self-compassion and fear of self-compassion with mothers' reactions to prioritizing health behaviours. Mothers rated their self-compassion, fear of self-compassion, read a scenario about prioritizing health behaviours and rated adjectives describing themselves if they behaved as described in the scenario. Self-compassion was positively related to positive reactions to engaging in health behaviours in the midst of motherhood. Fear of self-compassion led to negative reactions. This research provides insight into why some mothers feel better about incorporating health behaviours into their lives than others.

BackgroundFamilies have faced unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to increased maternal mental health problems and barriers to accessing care. Innovative programs are needed to support both maternal mental health and parenting, and to buffer the long-term impacts of stress on young children. Using a patient-oriented approach, our research team aimed to co-develop and pilot test an App-based psychoeducation and social-connection platform: Building Emotional Awareness and Mental Health (BEAM).MethodsThe co-development process involved a parent advisory board from conceptualization and design, through to direct participation in the program delivery. The BEAM program includes weekly videos and activities based on Unified Protocol therapy modules and emotion-focused parenting strategies, a weekly telehealth group review session, and access to a private online forum for support from other mothers and clinical coaches. A parallel randomized control trial was conducted across two provinces in Canada. Mothers of preschool children (aged 18–36 months old), with moderate-to-severe depression (Patient Health Questionaire-9 ≥ 10), were recruited online and randomized to either the 10-week BEAM intervention or treatment as usual (TAU) control group. Online surveys (ensuring researcher blinding) included questions about feasibility and acceptability of the program and pre/post self-report measures of mental health, parenting, positive coping and child behavior outcomes. The primary outcome measures were symptoms of depression and parenting stress. Data were analyzed using mixed models and an intention-to-treat approach.Results65 participants were randomized, by an online allocation tool, to the BEAM (n = 33) and TAU (n = 32) groups. Engagement was relatively high at the beginning of the program, with 78.8% starting the BEAM App and 70.6% attending ≥1 telehealth session. Most respondents felt socially supported, satisfied with the App, and found it easy to use. Pre-post results indicated interaction effects with greater reductions in overall mental health problems, and specifically anxiety and sleep symptoms, among BEAM vs. control participants. There were also time effects with reductions in depression symptoms across both groups. No significant treatment effects emerged for the other mental health symptoms, parenting problems, positive coping, or child behavior outcomes. Descriptive data are included to highlight possible areas of promise for future large efficacy trials. Technological difficulties and other challenges that may have led to attrition and impacted outcomes are discussed. There were no adverse events related to study participation.ConclusionsThe BEAM program has promise as a novel, feasible and acceptable intervention for improving mental health among mothers of young children.Clinical Trial Registration[www.ClinicalTrials.gov], identifier [NCT04772677].

Background. Disruptive behavior disorders have increased during the pandemic and are associated with family conflict and child risk of child maltreatment. While parent training interventions are a best-practice intervention to treat a range of disruptive behavior disorders and family dysfunction concerns, there are limited and mixed findings on the efficacy of telehealth or digital parent training interventions. As the field of digital therapeutics continues to expand, it is imperative we seek to understand the program and client factors linked to differential efficacy. Objective. Our objective was to compare digital therapies to their “best-practice” in-person counterparts (i.e. non-inferiority trials), as well as comparing the relative benefits of a given program to waitlists, other ehealth programs, or treatment as usual. Furthermore, we aimed to interrogate which types and components of digital therapeutics are most efficacious and for whom.Methods. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis (k = 24, total number of intervention participants = 1654 and control participants = 1001) of the impact of digital parent training interventions on parent skill, parent mental health, and child externalizing outcomes from 2000 to 2021, among children 2-12 years old, across four databases. Exclusionary criteria include programs targeted for parents of children with intellectual disabilities, autism, brain injury, nutrition/health/dental needs or primary medical diagnosis. Results. Across outcomes, digital parent training interventions had a modest effect size (g = .27 to .33), compared to controls. The effects of digital parent training on parent skills and child outcomes were stronger if the intervention was evidence-based, combined interactive platforms with a therapist and was compared to an inactive control. Conclusions. Together, these findings suggest digital parent training interventions are an effective approach linked to modest improvements in reducing child disruptive behavioral symptoms and improving parenting skills. Such scalable and accessible approaches hold high potential to reduce burdens of child and adolescent mental illness, particularly when applied in a stepped care model. We call on future studies to provide standardized sociodemographic reporting to aide in future knowledge synthesis work that can inform tailored interventions to different populations and provide templates for shared measurement. Preregistration and open data files: https://osf.io/e35bt/.

Parents of children with complex medical conditions (CMC) are at-risk of mental health concerns but have few mental health interventions available. This study summarized extant research on mental health interventions for parents of children with CMC. Searches of PsycINFO, Medline, CINAHL, Web of Science, PubMED, and Social Services Abstracts databases occurred, and articles were screened using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines as well as the Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage method for scoping reviews. Screening eligibility included being peer-reviewed and written in English, assessing a parent/caregiver of a child aged 0-12 with a CMC who received a mental health intervention, and published between January 1, 2000 to May 19, 2020. Nine studies were included, each assessing mental health, process, and/or feasibility outcomes. Reduced depression, anxiety, stress, and an increase in quality of life, psychological flexibility, mindfulness, coping skills, and shared management were found; however, results were mixed. Parental support/education and parent education/child developmental supports are important for treating stress and quality of life, respectively. Stress interventions are most effective when provided close to CMC diagnosis. Findings highlight the need to improve mental health for parents of children with CMC.