Proposed Methodology This research proposes 2 studies to investigate the above stated
questions. Study 1 will utilize a cross-sectional design with children and adolescents,
as well as their parents (from general population), completing questionnaires provided,
while Study 2 will involve inviting participants from Study 1 to participate in a
randomized controlled trial. Participants may choose to only participate in Study 1 and
not Study 2. If participants are keen and provide consent to participate in Study 2, they
will have to complete both interventions and all questionnaires required at all
timepoints.
Participants & Procedure Participants include children and adolescents aged 7 to 17 years
old, and one of their parents. Participants will be recruited from the community and the
Student Health Centre at Health Promotion Board (HPB). HPB is only used as a referral
site and recruitment site. Research procedures are not conducted on their premise. Both
parents and children will be required to be fluent in the English language, and all
parent-child dyads will be invited to participate.
In terms of procedure, interested participants (parent-child dyads) will be invited to
participate. Consent will be collected from the child and their parents. For Study 1,
after consent is taken, participants will be asked to complete a set of questionnaires
and indicate their interest to participate in Study 2. Survey questionnaires will be
administered either face-to-face or online - for face-to-face administration, the
researcher will provide parent-child dyad with a tablet to complete the questionnaires;
for online administration, parent-child dyads will be emailed a link to the
questionnaires to complete (most likely on Qualtrics). All participants are advised to
complete all questions and do not skip. A copy of the questionnaire will be shown in its
entirety to participants before providing consent. For children, if they have difficulty
understanding the questions, they are allowed to skip it or seek help from their
parents/researcher. The parents' questionnaire should take at most 30 minutes to
complete, while the child's questionnaire will take at most 15 minutes to complete.
If participants only participate in Study 1, they will only be required to complete the
set of questionnaires at Timepoint 1. Participants in Study 1 will not be debriefed, but
they can request to be debriefed by contacting the research team and we can arrange a
debrief via Zoom.
In Study 2, a randomized controlled trial is designed to test the effects of parent
emotion coaching on parental factors (such as ER skills, sense of competency, and mood
and stress levels), child factors (such as ER skills, internalizing and externalizing
problems, and treatment outcomes), as well as parent-child relationship. Participants
will be a subset of Study 1's participants.
If participants indicate interest to participate in Study 2, the parents will be randomly
assigned to the following experimental groups: 1. Emotion Coaching Training, or 2.
Waitlist Control condition. Parents in the emotion coaching workshop will be invited to
attend an online training on emotion coaching strategies, while parents in the control
condition will not be receiving any training workshops during the study. They will be
invited to join the online workshops when the study is completed. Participants will not
be informed of the group that they are assigned to, and a debrief session will be
provided once they complete the study. \
The training module consists of a three-hour workshop, followed by 2 bi-weekly 30-minute
phone/online consultations (participants can choose from preferred timeslot on weekdays
during regular work hours).
Parents and children will be required to complete the set of outcome measures at pre-,
post-treatment and at a 1-month follow-up. All procedures are conducted in English only.
Estimated timeline for the different groups:
Treatment Group - Week 0: Questionnaire (parent and child), Weeks 1 - 5: Parent Workshop,
2 phone consults, Week 6: post-questionnaire (parent and child), Week 9 - 10: follow-up
questionnaire (parent and child). Intervention phase itself will last at most 5 weeks.
The 3-hour online workshop will be conducted in real-time over Zoom, by a clinical
psychologist or a Masters in Clinical Psychologist student (supervised by a clinical
psychologist).
Waitlist Group - Week 0: Questionnaire (parent and child), Week 6: Questionnaire T2
(parent and child), Week 9-10: Questionnaire T3 (parent and child). After they have
completed all 3 sets of questionnaires, they will be invited to sign up for the workshop
on dates that are convenient for them. The 3-hour online workshop will be conducted in
real-time over Zoom, by a clinical psychologist or a Masters in Clinical Psychologist
student (supervised by a clinical psychologist).
At the end of Study 2, all participants will be provided with the debrief sheet (either
hard or soft copy can be provided) and offered a debrief session over Zoom. The debrief
session will be conducted by the research team.
In cases whereby participants may wish to have longer consultation sessions, or to extend
the intervention outside of the research, they may be referred to the relevant
professionals/services.
Participants have until 1 week after they completed the study to decide if they wish to
withdraw their research data.