Clinical Research Directory

Young Children and Screens: Parents' Perspectives and Child Health Nurses' Approaches in a Digital Age

The overall aim of the research project is to investigate screen habits among children (0-5 years) and their parents including nurses' perspective, and further parents' and nurses' experiences of using web-based healthcare advisory services within Swedish child health care (CHC). The main research questions are: What is the correlation between children's and their parents' screen use? How does screen use differ among families with various socioeconomic backgrounds? How well does the modified SCREEN-Q instrument measure screen use in Swedish conditions? How do parents perceive their own and their children's screen use and their parental role? What are parents' views on available advice and recommendations regarding children's screen use? How do parents use and experience web-based advisory services within health care and Swedish child health care (CHC)? How do CHC nurses address screen media-related issues within CHC? What are CHC nurses' experiences with web-based advisory services? Participants will: * Complete a survey on screen habits and digital health service use (N ≈ 300) * Contribute to validation of a modified SCREEN-Q instrument * Take part in interviews (parents) and focus groups (child health nurses)

Effects of a Financial Literacy and Gender-Transformative Couples Intervention on Parenting Practices in India

Many families in India experience intimate partner violence (IPV) and financial stress, both of which can harm the way parents interact with and discipline their children. When parents are under stress, they may be more likely to use harsh physical discipline or be less involved and warm with their children. Improving how couples communicate, manage money together, and relate to each other more fairly may help parents raise their children in healthier and more nurturing ways. This study examines whether a couples-based programme, "Let Us Grow Together: Economic Wellbeing for Families," improves parenting practices among married couples in India. The programme consists of six group sessions attended by husbands and wives together. Sessions cover financial skills such as budgeting, saving, and joint financial planning, alongside topics on respectful relationships, communication, and shared decision-making in the household. Sessions are delivered over approximately five months by trained male and female facilitators, with text message reminders sent between sessions to reinforce key messages. The study is nested within a larger randomised controlled trial called ECOVI (Disentangling and Preventing Economic Violence against Women), conducted across three Indian states: Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan, involving 2,276 married couples. Villages or community groups are randomly assigned to either receive the programme or continue as usual. This random assignment means the study can reliably measure whether the programme, rather than some other factor, caused any changes in parenting. Parenting is assessed at the end of the study (endline) using questions from the s-EMBU-P Questionnaire, a widely used and validated tool. These questions ask mothers and fathers separately about three aspects of parenting: rejection/harsh parenting, emotional warmth/positive parenting and overprotection/control. The study also examines whether any improvements in parenting occur because the programme reduces violence between partners, improves parents' mental health, reduces family financial stress, or improves their relationship. All of these mediators are measured at baseline and endline. Both mothers and fathers are asked about their own parenting practices separately, making this one of the few studies to examine how such a programme affects fathers' and mothers' parenting practices in this context.

Talk Parenting Education Program II

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn whether Talk Parenting, a voice-based program delivered through an Amazon Echo Dot (Alexa), can help parents and caregivers of children ages 3-5 years improve challenging bedtime and morning routines. The main questions it aims to answer are: Does using Talk Parenting improve families' bedtime and morning experiences and children's sleep/wake habits? Does using Talk Parenting improve parents' routine-related parenting practices and confidence, strengthen the parent-child relationship, and reduce children's behavior problems and parents' stress? Researchers will compare families who receive Talk Parenting right away to families who wait 6 weeks to receive the program (a waitlist control group receiving usual services during the wait). Participants will: Complete online questionnaires at the start of the study and again about 6 weeks later (and a follow-up questionnaire later in the study). Receive a pre-configured Amazon Echo Dot (to keep) and instructions to use Talk Parenting routines at home, including a bedtime routine, a brief calming routine, and a morning routine (enabled after the first 2 weeks).

The Good Start Matters - Parenting Program

Early childhood is an important period where the family can support the development and maintenance of healthy eating and active behaviors to prevent or reduce childhood obesity. With this ultimate goal, we designed the Good Start Matters - Parenting program, which aims to engage families in positive parenting practices that support healthy child behaviors, and aim to evaluate the efficacy of this intervention with a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). The Good Start Matters - Parenting program is a 2-month mobile-Health (mHealth) parenting intervention which promote positive parenting (primary outcome) and support children's healthy nutrition, physical activity, and decrease screen-time (secondary outcomes).