The Effects of Digital Parenting Training Given to Mothers on Social Media Addiction and Their Children's Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Technology Use
Phase: NA
Conditions: Parenting, Social Media Addiction, Internet Addiction
Sponsor: Artvin Coruh University

COVER PAGE 
Offical Title: The Effect of Digital Parenting Education Provided to Mothers on Social Media 
Addiction and Their Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding Their Children’s Technology Use 
Document date: March 29, 2024 
NCT Number: Not yet assigned 
 

STUDY PROTOCOL 
This study aims to examine the effectiveness of digital parenting education provided to mothers 
in reducing their levels of social media addiction and improving their knowledge and attitudes 
regarding their children's use of technology. The widespread presence of digital media in 
everyday life has increased children’s exposure to technology, which in turn has raised concerns 
about screen time, digital safety, and parental guidance. Research suggests that parents' own 
digital habits, particularly mothers', may significantly influence their children's digital 
behaviors. Despite the importance of this issue, there is a limited number of intervention studies 
focusing on evidence-based digital parenting education. Therefore, this randomized controlled 
trial has been designed to fill this gap and contribute to the growing field of digital health 
education. 
The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the impact of a structured digital parenting 
education program on mothers’ social media addiction levels and their knowledge and attitudes 
related to the digital media usage of their children. The study will utilize a randomized 
controlled, pretest-posttest design with two parallel groups: an intervention group and a control 
group. 
A total of 152 mothers will be recruited to participate in the study. Participants will be randomly 
assigned into either the intervention group (n = 76) or the control group (n = 76) using a simple 
randomization method generated via randomizer.org. Eligibility criteria include being over the 
age of 18, having at least one child, and being an active social media user. Mothers with severe 
psychiatric diagnoses or those unable to participate in the training program will be excluded 
from the study. 
The intervention group will receive a digital parenting education program delivered online over 
a four-week period. The content will focus on responsible social media use, digital 
communication, media literacy, setting boundaries, and digital role modeling. The control group 
will not receive any intervention during this period but will complete the same pretest and 
posttest assessments as the intervention group. 
Data collection will occur at two time points: prior to the intervention (pretest) and after the 
completion of the intervention (posttest). The following validated instruments will be used: the 
Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS), the Digital Parenting Attitude Scale (DPAS), and a 
Technology Knowledge Questionnaire developed by the researchers. 
Descriptive statistics will be calculated to summarize the demographic characteristics of 
participants. The normality of data distribution will be evaluated using the Shapiro-Wilk test. 
Between-group comparisons will be conducted using the independent samples t-test or the 

Mann-Whitney U test, depending on the distribution of data. Within-group changes will be 
analyzed using the paired samples t-test or Wilcoxon signed-rank test. A two-way repeated 
measures ANOVA will be conducted to test the time × group interaction effects. If assumptions 
are violated, non-parametric alternatives such as the Friedman test will be employed. Effect 
sizes will be calculated using Cohen’s d to determine the magnitude of intervention effects. 
If missing data occurs, cases with less than 5% missingness will be excluded from analysis. If 
missing data exceeds this threshold, imputation methods such as multiple imputation or last 
observation carried forward (LOCF) will be applied. Both intention-to-treat and per-protocol 
analyses will be performed to ensure robustness. A p-value of less than 0.05 will be considered 
statistically significant. All statistical analyses will be performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 
version 26. Power analysis and sample size estimation were conducted using G*Power 
software. 
This study will be conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. 
Ethical approval will be obtained from the relevant institutional review board prior to data 
collection. Informed consent will be collected from all participants before enrollment in the 
study. 
The CONSORT flow diagram summarizes the participant process. Of the 152 participants who 
applied, all were randomized into either the intervention or control group. The intervention 
group received the training and completed the posttest. The control group only completed 
pretest and posttest assessments. No participant attrition occurred, and all 152 participants were 
included in the final analyses. 
This study will be conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. 
Ethical approval was obtained from the Atatürk University Non-Interventional Clinical 
Research Ethics Committee (Date: 29.03.2024, Approval Number: B.30.2.ATA.0.01.00/194). 
Written informed consent will be obtained from all participants prior to their enrollment in the 
study.