Training Parents by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Managing Childhood Asthma Care
Condition: Childhood Asthma
MeSH terms: Asthma
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The purpose of this study is to examine whether a parental training program using group-based
      Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for childhood asthma care, is effective in reducing the
      children's unplanned health care services utilization and asthmatic symptoms.
    

Detailed description: 
      One-tenth of children in worldwide are diagnosed with asthma and it is the leading cause for
      unplanned health care services utilization. Parents, as the primary caregivers, experience
      different level of psychological distress in taking care of their children with asthma. Some
      of them responded with avoidance-based coping, which results in poor asthma symptom
      management and monitoring. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a contextual focused,
      behavioral therapy aiming at improving psychological flexibility, so that a person can be
      more opened up to engaging in value-driven behavior modification, thus attaining an optimal
      disease control. The benefits of ACT have been demonstrated on both parents and their
      children with chronic health conditions such as developmental disabilities, acquired brain
      injuries, chronic pain, cancer and mental disorders. To date, no ACT intervention has been
      conducted on examining its effects on training parents in managing their children with
      asthmatic conditions.

      This is the first study aims to examine the effects of a parental training program using
      group-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in reducing the unplanned health care
      services utilization and asthmatic symptoms, among children with asthma. Parents of children
      diagnosed with asthma will either receive one session of pediatric asthma educational talk as
      usual practice in the study hospital, or in addition, four sessions of group-based ACT
      integrated with asthma education.

      If the group-based ACT is effective in reducing children's asthmatic symptoms and overall
      unplanned asthma-related health services utilization, it could lead to substantial health
      benefits in children with asthma and on parents with a reduction in psychological distress.
      In addition to cutting medical expenses, it could also contribute to the community health
      through the reduction in mortality and morbidity due to asthmatic attacks. Furthermore,
      information collected from this proposed study will open up an opportunity for exploring the
      potential of ACT-based intervention in managing other childhood chronic diseases.
    

Intervention name(s): ACT; Control
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Four sessions of group-based ACT integrated with asthma education. Each session will compose of pediatric asthma education based on guidelines of Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention Revised 2011, plus group-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The goal of ACT is to enhance the psychological flexibility of the parents, enabling them to (1) become aware of their thoughts and feelings regarding their child's asthma and its management, (2) accept and adapt flexibly to challenging situations, and (3) take actions to achieve valued goals in childhood asthma management.; One session of educational talk about pediatric asthma care, as the usual care. To ensure the equivalency of the assigned sessions between groups, after attending the talk in the first week, the parents in the Control group will receive three telephone calls, starting from the second week on a weekly basis. This arrangement can also minimize the interference of the usual care naturalistically available in the study setting.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; Childhood asthma; Randomized controlled trial; Training parents