Evaluating the Efficacy of the Parent Support Program (PSP)

The objective of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of an online intervention (the Parents Support Program) aimed at increasing supportive behaviors among parents of transgender youth. The intervention consists of three modules that include a variety engaging activities such as social perspective taking exercises, writing prompts, videos of parents, youth, and experts, and psycho-educational materials. The study uses an experimental design with a waitlist control. Both the experimental and control groups will complete a pre-test, one month follow up, and two month follow up survey. Targeted outcomes include knowledge about gender diversity, attitudes about trans youth, and supportive parenting behaviors.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Gender Identity; Prejudice
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Parent Support Program

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 570
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Palo Alto, California, United States, 94304
      • Palo Alto University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Must be 18 years of age or older.
• Must live in the United States.
• Must be comfortable communicating in English.
• Must be a parent of a trans child between the ages of 10 - 24.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participants who participated in pilot study or focus groups related to this project.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: CROSSOVER
• Masking: NONE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Immediate Access to Parent Support Program	Behavioral: Parent Support Program; The parent support program includes three modules aimed at increasing knowledge, positive attitudes, and supportive behaviors towards trans youth. Each online module includes several activities including writing prompts, videos, interactive quizzes, and other educational activities.
NO_INTERVENTION: Waitlist Control

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Trans-supportive behaviors scale	This 20 item questionnaire measures the frequency of supportive behaviors enacted in the past month. Response options ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (frequently) based on item anchors from the Ryan et al. (2010) measure on family acceptance. The original 25-item scale was reduced to 20 items based on achieving adequate internal consistency reliability in a previous study with parents of trans youth (Matsuno & Israel, in preparation). An example item is: "I told my child I respect and support them." The measure showed adequate internal consistency reliability in the pilot study of the Parent Support Program (α = .8).	One month

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Attitudes Toward Trans Youth Scale (ATTYS - Birnkrant, 2018)	Two subscales of the original scale were used consisting of 27 items- Genderism, and Fabricated Identity. The scale had strong reliablity α = .98 and demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity.	One month
Objective knowledge about gender diversity	The author created a 18-item measure designed to test knowledge about constructs of gender and experiences of transgender people. The items are based on the program content and through best practices for creating multiple choice questions.	One month
Subjective knowledge about gender diversity	Participants perceptions of their own level knowledge regarding gender diversity will be measured using a 100-point Likert scale from 1 - not at all knowledgeable to 100- extremely knowledgeable. Participants will be asked to rate their perceived knowledge in the following areas: gender terminology, etiology, medical intervention, and impact of parental acceptance.	One month
Self-compassion	Self-compassion was measured by adapting the self-kindness subscale of the Self-Compassion Scale - Short Form (SCS-SF) (Raes, Pommier, Neff, & Van Gucht, 2011). The subscale demonstrated adequate reliability in a previous sample (α = .78) (Raes et al., 2011). The five items were adapted by adding "as a parent of a trans/non-binary child" at the end of each item to measure self-compassion related to parenting a trans child. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always). The measure showed strong internal consistency reliability in the pilot study of the Parent Support Program (α = .94).	One month

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Palo Alto University
• Collaborators: American Psychological Foundation
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Em Matsuno, PhD, Palo Alto University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): September 27, 2020
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): December 1, 2021
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): December 1, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 17, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 25, 2020
• First Posted (ACTUAL): August 28, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): February 8, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 3, 2023
• Last Verified: February 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: transgender; parental support; LGBTQ; trans youth; parental acceptance
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2019-116

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: No IPD will be shared with other researchers.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No