The T1D Parent Check-In: A Preventative Intervention

May 13, 2025 updated by: Ellen H. O'Donnell, Massachusetts General Hospital

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn how to best support families during the first year of a child or teen's Type 1 diabetes (T1D) diagnosis. Specifically, we are testing a parenting intervention, the T1D Parent Check-in, designed for parents of children, ages 8 to 17 years, who have been newly diagnosed with T1D. This three-session intervention is delivered by diabetes psychologists over telehealth with the goal of helping families adjust to T1D, build resilience, and improve children's long-term health.

For this trial, our main question is whether parents like the intervention and find it to be helpful and worth their time and effort. We also want to test whether participating in the intervention helps parents feel more confident in their parenting and problem-solving around diabetes, feel less worried about diabetes, reduce family conflict, and improve children's quality of life. To answer these questions, we will randomly assign study participants to one of two groups; parents will either 1) receive the T1D Parent Check-in intervention, or 2) receive their usual care through clinic. Parents assigned to the second group will have the option of participating in a one-time meeting with the psychologist at the end of the study to receive general information/resources from the study and receive feedback on their questionnaires. Parents in both groups will be asked to complete questionnaires four times over the course of six months. Parents will be paid to complete the questionnaires.

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The purpose of the project is to develop and pilot an innovative, 3-session, Type 1 Diabetes-specific telehealth intervention for parents of newly diagnosed children and adolescents. This study is a multi-method, mixed quantitative and qualitative pilot project that will inform a future randomized control trial (RCT). The intervention will be piloted at two pediatric diabetes clinics: Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) for Children and Boston Children's Hospital (BCH). Families of patients ages 8-17 years diagnosed with T1D within the past 3-9 months will be invited to participate in the study and then be randomly assigned to either the intervention group or a treatment-as-usual (TAU) group, with a goal of 25 families per group.

Measures of key outcomes (i.e., feasibility and acceptability measures, measures of diabetes-related resilience, distress, and family conflict, problem-solving, parenting style, parental stress, parent/child adjustment to children's chronic illness diagnosis, and health mindsets) will be collected via parent survey at baseline (T1), post-intervention (T2), 1-month follow-up (T3) and 6-month follow-up (T4) for within and between groups analyses. Qualitative feedback on the intervention will be sought from participating families after the third session (T2) and feedback on families' needs in the first year of diagnosis will be sought from all participants at T4. Additional information will be gathered from the medical record on diabetes regimen, HbA1c and demographics for descriptive statistics. This will also allow for exploratory analysis of change in HbA1c pre- to post-intervention and differences in glycemic control between groups.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

50

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Massachusetts
      • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02114
        • Massachusetts General Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Parents/ primary caregivers (aged >18) of pediatric patients (ages 8-17 years), who have been diagnosed with T1D for at least 3 months, but not greater than 9 months (to ensure the intervention can be delivered within the first year of diagnosis)
  • At least one caregiver (>18) proficient in the English language, as neither the intervention nor scales used in the study have been validated in other languages. The age range of the patient with diabetes 8-17 was chosen to include both middle childhood and adolescence when diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes is most common.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Parents' developmental delay or other cognitive impairment that may interfere with their completion of questionnaires or understanding of psychoeducational concepts, and
  • Parental scores in the "severe" range of depression and anxiety, evaluated using routine screening measures for depression and anxiety and which may indicate the parent requires a higher level of care.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention Group
The T1D Parent Check-in Group (Intervention Group) will participate in three sessions that will be delivered by a licensed clinical psychologist. In the larger RCT, the intervention will be manualized with training and a treatment protocol that can be delivered by any trained member of the diabetes psychosocial team (e.g., social workers, licensed mental health clinicians, and/or clinical psychologists). The intervention is designed to be both tailored and flexible but with fidelity to a basic structure. Diabetes-specific handouts and videos will be created as part of the intervention and will be provided to families throughout the course of the study.
Behavioral: T1D Parent Check-in
The Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) Parent Check-in is an innovative, 3-session, T1D-specific intervention for parents of newly diagnosed children and adolescents that can be delivered via telehealth. The T1D Parent Check-in is an adaptation of The Parent Check-In, a brief, prevention-based parenting intervention developed by Grolnick, Levitt, Caruso, & Lerner (2021). The T1D Parent Check-in is designed to promote parenting skills on dimensions of autonomy support, structure and involvement that facilitate children's adjustment and motivation, and integrates skills from cognitive-behavioral therapy, customized to be highly relevant to families with a child 6-12 months from new diagnosis of T1D. The intervention is intended to promote diabetes-related resilience and positive psychological and medical outcomes among families of children with T1D.
No Intervention: Treatment as Usual (TAU) Group
Parents assigned to the Treatment As Usual (TAU) group will complete T1-T4 study questionnaires alongside the intervention group. They will also take the Motivation Quiz as part of their T2 questionnaires. Instead of a one-month phone call, these participants will be scheduled for a one-time consultation with a study psychologist after completing their T4 questionnaires. This consultation will entail reviewing the family's specific questionnaire results, discussing challenges/strategies relevant to the family's needs, and providing additional recommendations/referrals as indicated. Families will also be provided access to study resources that will assist with their family's overall adjustment to T1D.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Recruitment Rate
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Recruitment data measured by percent of eligible families that were approached for participation that enrolled in study.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Intervention Completion Rate
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Feasibility of the intervention measured by percentage of intervention group participants who complete all three sessions of the intervention.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Client Satisfaction Questionnaire
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Participants in the intervention arm will complete the standardized Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ), a measure of overall satisfaction with the intervention.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Parenting in Pediatric Diabetes Questionnaire
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parents will rate their parenting in relation to their children's diabetes management.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Health Mindset Scale
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parents will complete the Health Mindset Scale, rating their beliefs about health as more changeable versus fixed.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Diabetes Problem Solving Interview (DPSI)
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parents will complete the standardized DPSI interview to evaluate diabetes-specific problem-solving.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parent Problem Areas in Diabetes for Children and Teens
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parents will complete the standardized Parent Problem Areas in Diabetes for Children and Teens to evaluate diabetes-related distress.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Diabetes Family Conflict Scale
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parents will complete the Diabetes Family Conflict Scale - Parent Report (DFCS) and rate how often they argued with their children over the past month across various tasks of diabetes management (e.g., remembering to check blood sugars).
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Connor-Davidson's Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10)
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parents will complete the Connor-Davidson's Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), a widely used measure of psychological resilience.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parenting Efficacy
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
The Parenting Efficacy scale measures parents' perceptions of efficacy in their parenting role.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Type 1 Diabetes and Life (T1DAL)
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Parents will reflect on their own quality of life as a parent of a child or teen with T1D by completing the standardized Type 1 Diabetes and Life (T1DAL) measure.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Child Hemoglobin A1C
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
The child's most proximate HbA1C value will be collected from their electronic medical record.
Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Time in Range
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 8 months
Children's prior one month time in range (TIR) will be collected for patients on continuous glucose monitors (CGM).
Through study completion, an average of 8 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Massachusetts General Hospital

Collaborators

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Boston Children's Hospital

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

February 1, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 20, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 6, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

December 7, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 16, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 13, 2025

Last Verified

May 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2023P002600

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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