Study of an Online Program to Help Parents Talk With Their Tween Children About Health, Gender, Body-Image, and Relationships

Online Parent Media Literacy Program to Promote Preadolescent Health

The goal of this study is to learn if Media Aware Parent - Tween, an online program for parents of children ages 9-12, helps parents have effective conversations with their child about health and media.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Communication; Parent-Child Relations; Parenting
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Media Aware Parent - Tween; Behavioral: Active Control Resource

Detailed Description

Parent-child pairs (N=300 pairs) will be recruited to participate in a randomized controlled trial. Parent consent and parent permission and youth assent will be sought. Participant pairs will be randomized into one of two study arms: intervention and active control. All participants will complete a web-based pre-test questionnaire. Youth and parents will then receive access to their randomly assigned resource. Approximately four weeks after completing the pre-test questionnaire, all participants will complete a web-based post-test questionnaire.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 390
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • North Carolina
    • Durham, North Carolina, United States, 27713
      • innovation Research and Training

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• The adult must be the legal guardian of a child ages 9 to 12 years old.
• The parent must be able and willing to receive email and text communication as part of the study.
• The parent-child pair must have access to a smartphone with internet connection as the resource review will be completed online in a format that is best viewed on a smartphone.
• The parent-child pair must be fluent in English as the study materials are written in English.
• The parent must indicate that they will give the child participant privacy to complete the questionnaires.
• Both the adult and child must agree to participate.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Only one parent-child pair per family may participate in the study. If the parent has more than one child aged 9 to 12 that is willing to participate, the parent will be prompted to select the child participant based on the following: if the parent's last name begins with a letter from A to M, select the youngest eligible child willing to participate or if the parent's last name begins with a letter from N to Z, select the oldest eligible child willing to participate.
• In an effort to ensure diversity in parent gender and race/ethnicity, not all eligible pairs who are interested in participating will be enrolled in the study.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention Program: Media Aware Parent -Tween; Participants will have access to an intervention between pre-test and post-test assessments. The intervention, Media Aware Parent -Tween, is an online program for parents of tweens ages 9-12 designed to help parents have effective conversations with their child about body image, sexual development, gender stereotypes, romantic relationships, and media.	Behavioral: Media Aware Parent - Tween; Media Aware Parent - Tween, is an online program for parents of tweens ages 9-12 designed to help parents have effective conversations with their child about body image, sexual development, gender stereotypes, romantic relationships, and media.
Active Comparator: Active Control Resource; Parents will have access to medically-accurate information about topics such as body image, sexual development, gender stereotypes, and romantic relationships.	Behavioral: Active Control Resource; Parents will have access to medically-accurate information about topics such as body image, sexual development, gender stereotypes, and romantic relationships.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change From Pretest in Child Report of Frequency of Parent-child Communication	Child will respond to questions about the frequency with which their parent has talked with them about 12 topics related to prepubescent health on a Likert-type scale [1 = Never; 2 = A little; 3 = A lot]. Reponses on items are averaged, and higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Parent Report of Frequency of Parent-child Communication	Parent will respond to questions about the frequency with which they have talked with their child about 12 topics related to prepubescent health on a Likert-type scale [1 = Never; 2 = A little; 3 = A lot]. Reponses on items are averaged, and higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Child Report of General Parent-child Communication Quality	Child will indicate the extent to which they agree with nine statements about communication with their parent on a Likert-type scale [1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Agree, 4 = Strongly agree]. Reponses on items are averaged, and higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Parent Report of General Parent-child Communication Quality	Parent will indicate the extent to which they agree with nine statements about communication with their child on a Likert-type scale [1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Agree, 4 = Strongly agree]. Reponses on items are averaged, and higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Child Report of Active Parental Media Mediation	Child's perception of parent's use of active media mediation will be assessed using two items (e.g., "How often does your parent tell you what they see in media is different than real life?"). Participants will rate items on a 5-point Likert scale [1 = never; 2 = almost never; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often; 5 = very often]. Reponses on items are averaged, and higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Parent Report of Active Parental Media Mediation	Parents' use of active media mediation will be assessed using two items (e.g., "How often do you tell your child what they see in media is different than real life?"). Participants will rate items on a 5-point Likert scale [1 = never; 2 = almost never; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often; 5 = very often]. Reponses on items are averaged, and higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Child Report of Parental Restrictive Media Mediation	Child's perception of parent's use of restrictive media mediation will be assessed using one item (e.g., "How often does your parent limit the amount of your screen time (watching shows, going online, playing video games, or using social media)?"). Participants will rate items on a 5-point Likert scale [1 = never; 2 = almost never; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often; 5 = very often]. Higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Parent Report of Parental Restrictive Media Mediation	Parent's use of restrictive media mediation will be assessed using one item (e.g., "How often do you limit the amount of your child's screen time (watching shows, going online, playing video games, or using social media)?"). Participants will rate items on a 5-point Likert scale [1 = never; 2 = almost never; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often; 5 = very often]. Higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Child Report of Awareness of Family Media Rules	Child will indicate on one item whether their family has rules about media use. Response options are "yes (1)," "no (0)," and "unsure (2)". Yes (1) indicates a more favorable outcome.	Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Parent Report of Awareness of Family Media Rules	Parent will indicate on one item whether their family has rules about media use. Response options are "yes (1)," "no (0)," and "unsure (2)". Yes (1) indicates a more favorable outcome.	Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Child Report of Acceptance of Gender Stereotypical Roles	Child will respond to the 7 items to indicate their agreement with statements about gender using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = "disagree a lot" to 5 = "agree a lot"). Reponses on items are averaged, and higher scores indicate a less favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Child Report of Attitudes Toward Puberty	Child will respond to one item (i.e., "I like the fact that I am becoming a woman/man") on a 4-point scale from 1 = disagree a lot to 4 = Agree a lot to assess participants' attitudes towards puberty. Higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)
Change From Pretest in Child Report of Body-esteem	Child will respond to four statements about how they feel about their body (e.g., I'm proud of my body) on a 5-point scale [1 = Never; 2 = Seldom; 3 = Sometimes; 4 = Often; 5 =Always]. Reponses on items are averaged, and higher scores indicate a more favorable outcome.	Pretest (at baseline) and Posttest (about four weeks after pretest questionnaire completion)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Innovation Research & Training
• Collaborators: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 6, 2024
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 24, 2025
• Study Completion (Actual): March 24, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 7, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 9, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): May 10, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 10, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 24, 2025
• Last Verified: June 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Puberty; Sexual Health; Gender Stereotypes; Body-Image; Preadolescent Health; Media Literacy; Parent-Child Communication; Relationship Health
• Other Study ID Numbers: TweenHealthStudy-R21-23-006-01; 5R21HD108440-02 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No