Clinical trial NCT04512352: An Early Childhood Internet-based and Family-based Intervention Study
Official title: A Large Scale Cross-sectional Survey and a Randomized Control Study on the Effectiveness of an Early Childhood Family-Based and Internet-Based Intervention
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Early Childhood Development
Keywords: Social mobility & poverty
Internet & family-based
Early childhood intervetion
Intergenerational
Productive aging
Lead sponsor: The University of Hong Kong
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2020-08-13
Enrollment: 233
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Large-scale survey: Using the stratified sampling method, a randomized list of 60 samples was selected from the official list of 506 kindergartens-cum-child care center provided by the Bureau of Education. Out of the 60 schools, a total of 40 schools from 12 NGOs agreed to join the survey. As of April 2019, we have received 700 responses for the survey.

Intervention Study: There are two phases of intervention in this stage. The total sample size for both phases is 200 parent-child dyads. For both phases, the team applied stratified randomization method for randomization. Participants were assigned to either treatment group or wait-list control group on a school basis.
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: The poverty rate among children under 18 years old in Hong Kong in 2015 was 18% after social welfare intervention. James Heckman, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, advocates early childhood investment to enhance social mobility, given its lifelong impact of on child development. However, few randomized control trails have been used to examine the effectiveness of early childhood intervention in promoting social mobility through child development in Hong Kong. To fill these gaps, we propose an interdisciplinary intervention study involving academics from economics, sociology, social work, gerontology, education, and psychology to investigate methods to promote the social mobility of children living in poverty through early intervention.

The overall objective is to enhance the developmental outcomes of children in poverty by utilizing parental resources within a family system, technological resources available in modern metropolis and the human resources enjoyed by the elderly in Hong Kong.

The primary objective is to evaluate an internet- and family-based intervention to promote the development of children in poverty enrolled in the first year of Hong Kong's nurseries, who are mostly aged 24 months to three years. The examined outcomes will be the developmental well-being of participating children and parenting attitudes and behaviors, with the long-term goal of promoting their social mobility to break the cycle of poverty. In the long run, we aim to establish the proposed intervention in policy to promote the development of disadvantaged children.

The secondary objective is to identify intergenerational volunteerism as a means for productive aging through a mentoring program using older adults as mentors to participating parents.

Detailed description: The proposed research consists of three phases. The first phase will be a cross-sectional survey with a sample of 1,000 cases from 60 nurseries cum kindergartens to explore the family demographics and developmental profiles of low-income children in comparison to others. The second phase will be a randomized control trail implementing two waves of a 10-month internet-based intervention with 200 toddler-parents dyads from 20 to 30 of the original 60 nurseries. Interventions will be delivered by older mentors professionally trained by the research team. All children, parents and elderly mentors will be evaluated through a set of outcome measurements to assess the effectiveness of the program. The last phase will involve the dissemination of research information that may become building blocks for policies on internet-based early childhood education, poverty alleviation and social mobility enhancement, as well as productive aging.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Parents who have children enrolled in the first year of Hong Kong nurseries ("N1"), mostly aged 24 months to 3 years

Exclusion Criteria:

* Parents who do not have children enrolled in the first year of Hong Kong nurseries ("N1")

Primary outcomes:
measure: Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development- Third Edition
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Parenting Sense of Competence Scale- Chinese
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Chinese version of the Parental Feeding Style Questionnaire
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 10-item
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support-Chinese
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
Other outcomes:
measure: The Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) -3 (Third Edition)
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional- 2 (Second Edition)
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development- Third Edition: Social-Emotional
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development- Third Edition: Adaptive Behavior
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: The General Functioning Subscale of the McMaster Family Assessment Device
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Parenting Stress Index - Short Form
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21 Items
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting (IEMP) scale, Chinese version
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
measure: Psychological and Behavioral Control
timeFrame: Change from baseline assessment at 10 months
Locations:
city: Hong Kong
country: Hong Kong
facility: Hong Kong Christian Service
city: Hong Kong
country: Hong Kong
facility: Hong Kong Lutheran Social Service
city: Hong Kong
country: Hong Kong
facility: Hong Kong Young Women's Christian Association
city: Hong Kong
country: Hong Kong
facility: Po Leung Kuk
city: Hong Kong
country: Hong Kong
facility: The Salvation Army
city: Hong Kong
country: Hong Kong
facility: Tung Wah Group of Hospitals
Study officials:
affiliation: Hong Kong Institute of Economics and Business Strategy
name: Pauline Sung-Chan, Ph.D
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: