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Urologic DiseasesNCT05467527

PACT Programme for Parents of Children With SHCN

A study testing Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training plus positive parenting advice and Positive parenting advice in people with Urologic Diseases and Gastrointestinal Diseases, run by Chinese University of Hong Kong at 2 sites in Hong Kong.

Completed

Finished. The study has ended and is not enrolling. Results may be posted on the official record.

Official record
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Trial summary

This randomised controlled trial aims to determine the efficacy of a 12-week, smartphone-based Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training (PACT) programme plus age-appropriate positive parenting advice on the psychological flexibility, prosociality, parenting competence and family functioning with parents… Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 21 years and older
What is being tested?
Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training plus positive parenting advice and Positive parenting advice
Could I receive a placebo?
Yes, some participants may receive a placebo
How many people
196 participants
Where
2 sitesHong Kong
Study dates
27 Jun 2022to 31 Dec 2025
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
None posted in the registry

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 21 years and older
  • All sexes
  • No healthy volunteers
  • Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong residents
  • Living together with the child who is at preschool/school-age (3-8 years old)
  • Caregivers who adopted the responsibility of taking care of the child,
  • has daily access to their iPhone and Android smartphones.
  • In addition, potential eligible parents who respond "yes" to any of the five validated screening questions in the Children with Special Health Care Needs (SHCN) Screener (see https://www.childhealthdata.org/docs/cshcn/technical-summary-of-cshcn-screener.pdf) will then be asked the associated follow-up questions to determine whether the child possesses physical, neurodevelopmental/emotional problem(s) that has lasted for at least 12 months. Only children with a positive response(s) to ≥ 1 item in each of the associated follow-up questions will be classified as children with SHCN.

Who cannot join

  • Parents who have diagnoses of severe mental illness or developmental disabilities, such as intellectual disabilities

Trial locations and contacts

2 sites in 1 country.

Hong Kong2 sites

  • Hong Kong Young Women's Christian Association

    Kowloon

  • Department of Surgery, Hong Kong Children's Hospital

    Ngau Tau Kok, Kowloon

Other trials in Hong Kong

About this study

Official title: Effectiveness of Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training (PACT) Programme for Parents of Children With Special Health Care Needs in Response to Outbreaks of Novel Infectious Disease: A Randomised Controlled Trial

This randomised controlled trial aims to determine the efficacy of a 12-week, smartphone-based Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training (PACT) programme plus age-appropriate positive parenting advice on the psychological flexibility, prosociality, parenting competence and family functioning with parents of children with special health care needs as well as the mental well-being of parent-child dyads over 12 months follow-up.

Read the detailed description

Background: The caregiving burden experienced by parents of children with special health care needs (SHCN) is known to be significant, and its impact tends to be exacerbated when an outbreak of a novel infectious disease occurs. As shown in this coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with the prolonged disruptions of individualised rehabilitation/supporting services which cannot be substituted by digital/remoted format and the unprecedented economic hardship, many parents of children with SHCN are under psychological distress, affecting parenting behaviours and child well-being. Existing interventions in literature only serve for suspected/infected cases/healthcare workers. Many interventions were developed without a conceptual understanding of what/how the proposed active/therapeutic ingredient(s)/process(es) could lead to desired outcomes. This study informs the development of a conceptual model, showing that two psychological constructs, namely psychological flexibility (a therapeutic process measured in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and prosociality (an attitude and/or behaviour that orient(s) toward the welfare of others and society) played significant roles in mitigating the adverse impact of COVID-19 on parental mental health.

Objectives: To determine the efficacy of a 12-week, smartphone-based Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training (PACT) programme plus age-appropriate positive parenting advice on the psychological flexibility, prosociality, parenting competence of parents and family functioning parents of children with SHCN as well as the mental well-being of parent-child dyads over 12 months follow-up.

Hypotheses to be tested: When compared to the Control Group, the participation in the PACT programme could improve parental mental well-being, child mental well-being, parental psychological flexibility and parental prosociality, parenting competence and family functioning at immediate, 3-, 6- and 12 months after the completion of the programme.

Design and subjects: A randomised controlled trial with a blinded, two-arm, repeated-measures design; 196 Cantonese-speaking parents/caregivers of children with special health care needs.

Study Instruments: Validated questionnaires.

Intervention: A 12-week, smartphone-based Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training (PACT) programme plus age-appropriate positive parenting advice.

Primary outcome measure: Parental mental well-being and child mental well-being.

Data analysis: Generalised estimating equation specifying an identity link function and a normal distribution will be employed to examine its change across two groups and all assessment time-points, followed by posthoc comparisons.

Expected results: To increase the mental well-being of parents and their children with special health needs. In addition, parenting competence and family functioning will also be improved.

Being tested
Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training plus positive parenting advice, Positive parenting advice
Keywords
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Randomised Controlled Trial, Special health care needs, novel infectious disease, prosociality
Medical subject headings
Urologic Diseases, Gastrointestinal Diseases, Vascular Diseases, Cleft Lip, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Learning Disabilities

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training plus positive parenting adviceBehavioural

    The PACT group will receive a combination of 6 online modules and 4 group-based video conferencing sessions of Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training plus positive parenting advice via a mobile app across 12 weeks. The modules will cover real-life scenarios of daily parenting challenges in caring for a child with SHCN, followed by age-appropriate positive parenting advice based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. After going through the scenarios, parents will be audio/visually guided to participate in ACT activities, including mindfulness exercises, ACT metaphors and experiential exercises, which will be used to increase psychological flexibility.

  • Positive parenting adviceBehavioural

    The Control Group will receive a total of 6 online modules and 4 group-based video conferencing sessions in a closed group of 6-8, 60 minutes per session guided by a trained facilitator via the mobile app across 12 weeks. The online modules will provide identical contents to those in the PACT group, but no guided ACT metaphors or experiential exercises. The interaction sessions serve to review and discuss the contents of online modules, but without the contents related to ACT/prosociality.

Study groups in NCT05467527
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
PACT GroupExperimentalA combination of 6 online modules and 4 group-based video conferencing sessions of Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training plus positive parenting advice via a mobile app across 12 weeks
Receives: Behavioral: Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training plus positive parenting advice
Control GroupPlacebo comparatorA combination of 6 online modules and 4 group-based video conferencing sessions of daily parenting challenges in caring for a child with SHCN plus positive parenting advice via a mobile app across 12 weeks
Receives: Behavioral: Positive parenting advice

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Parental mental well-being

    The 14-item Mental Health Continuum Short Form for Adults (MHC-SF) will be used to assess the emotional, social and psychological well-being of parents. MHC-SF can be scored between 0 and 5 (6 points Likert scale), which means that the total score on the scale can range from 0 to 70 points. Higher scores indicate a higher level of emotional wellbeing. scaleThe MHC-SF subscales possessed good convergent validity and internal consistencies in Western populations (Lamers et al., 2011).

    Measured: Change from baseline assessment to immediate, 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention

  2. Child mental well-being

    The 25-item Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ, 25 items, 3-point Likert scale) will be adopted to evaluate the psychological adjustment of children with SHCN, in terms of conduct problems, hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, peer problems and prosocial behaviours. A total difficulties score can be generated by summing scores from all the scales except the prosocial scale. The resultant score ranges from 0 to 40. The SDQ is one of the most commonly used proxy reports from parents to assess the psychopathology of their children aged 3-16 years (Lai et al., 2010).

    Measured: Change from baseline assessment to immediate, 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention

Secondary outcomes (4)

  1. Parental psychological flexibility

    The 6-item PsyFlex (5-point Likert Scale) will assess all six therapeutic processes in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Each item refers to one of the core skills that ACT focuses on when developing psychological flexibility and well-being. The score is then interpreted such that higher scores represent higher psychological flexibility. (Hayes et al., 2011).

    Measured: Change from baseline assessment to immediate, 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention

  2. Parental prosociality

    The 16-item Prosocialness Scale for Adults assesses 4 types of prosocial behaviours, including sharing, helping, taking care of, and feeling empathic with others from 1 (never/almost never) to 5 (almost always/always true) and summing all responses and finding the mean to get a total score (Caprara et al., 2005).

    Measured: Change from baseline assessment to immediate, 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention

  3. Parenting competence

    The 17-item Chinese Version of the Parenting Sense of Competency Scale (C-PSOC; Ngai, Chan,\& Holroyd E, 2007) will be used to assess parents' perceptions of their abilities to manage parenting needs. The PSOC comprises two subscales - the Efficacy subscale and the Satisfaction subscale. The Efficacy subscale contains eight items measuring parents' perception of competence in the parenting role. Differently, the Satisfaction subscale contains nine items evaluating the satisfaction and comfort of parents with the parenting role. Each item is scored using a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The total score ranges from 17 to 102, while subscale scores range for the Efficacy and Satisfaction subscales are 17 to 48 and 17 to 54, respectively. The higher the score, the higher sense of competence and satisfaction in parenting. The PSOC had adequate internal consistencies (α=.77-.85) and test-retest reliabilities (r=.87) among Hong Kong parents.

    Measured: Change from baseline assessment to immediate, 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention

  4. Family functioning

    The 36-item Chinese version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Family Impact Module (PedsQL FIM; Chen et al., 2011) will be adopted to assess the impact of pediatric asthma comorbid with ADHD on parent health-related quality of life and the family functioning. The PedsQL FIM consists of 8 subscales: Physical Functioning (6 items), Emotional Functioning (5 items), Social Functioning (4 items), Cognitive Functioning (5 items), Communication (3 items), Worry (5 items), Daily Activities (3 items) and Family Relationships (5 items). The former six subscales measure parents' overall functioning, while the latter two subscales measure parent-reported family functioning. Each item has five Likert response options, which are 0 (never a problem) to 4 (almost always a problem). Items are then linearly transformed to a 0-100 scale (0 = 100, 1 = 75, 2 = 50, 3 = 25, 4 = 0) and averaged by the number of items, so that higher scores indicate better health-related quality of life.

    Measured: Change from baseline assessment to immediate, 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted20 Jul 2022
  2. Study start27 Jun 2022
  3. Primary completion30 Nov 2025
  4. Study completion31 Dec 2025

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase N/A
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomised
Intervention model
Parallel groups
Model description
Parallel Assignment; repeated-measures 2-arm randomized controlled trial
Masking
Triple blind
Who is masked
Participant, Investigator, Outcomes assessor
Enrolment
196 participants (actual)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT05467527
Sponsor's protocol ID
2191269
Status last verified
Aug 2026
First submitted
18 Jul 2022
Last updated
11 Aug 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing Prosocial-orientated Acceptance and Commitment Training plus positive parenting advice and Positive parenting advice in people with Urologic Diseases and Gastrointestinal Diseases, run by Chinese University of Hong Kong at 2 sites in Hong Kong.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 5 inclusion and 1 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 11 Aug 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 2 sites in Hong Kong. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. Some participants in this study may receive a placebo. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Parental mental well-being (time frame: Change from baseline assessment to immediate, 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention). The study lists 2 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT05467527.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 11 Aug 2026.

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