Mindfulness-based Intervention and Young Children's Screen Time

Mindfulness-based Intervention on Parent Empowerment in Reducing Young Children's Screen Time (MORE): a Mixed Method Study

This research proposal aims to explore the effectiveness of the mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) on reducing young children's screen time (ST) and caring parents' psychological and social issues in Hong Kong.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Screen Time Exposure
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Mindfulness-based intervention on parent empowerment in reducing children's screen time (MORE)

Detailed Description

The research design was a two-arm waitlist, randomised controlled study with a focus group interview with 60 participants. The intervention integrates the mindfulness-based component into a modified Hands-on Parent Empowerment-20 (HOPE-20) programme, and is named as MORE (i.e. Mindfulness-based intervention On parent empowerment in REducing children's screen time). The intervention consists of 6 weeks of MBI training, each lasting for 2 hours, led by an experienced certified mindfulness teacher. The intervention programme consists of three components: (1) skill part - 4 lessons talk about parenting skills (Praising, token system, response cost, planned ignorance, quiet zone); (2) skill part - 2 lessons talk about child-parent communication (building relationship, communication strategies); and (3) mindfulness part - mindfulness-based training. The primary outcomes are young children's ST and children's disruptive behaviour. Feasibility outcomes include recruitment rate, retention rate, and acceptability of the interventions. Secondary outcomes include parent-child relationships, parents' perceptions of their abilities to manage the demands of parenting, parental stress level, and social support adequacy. The proposal also includes plans for focus group interviews with participants to gather qualitative data. Analyses will include descriptive statistics, Pearson's chi-square test, Pearson's product-moment correlations, One-way ANOVA. A p-value < 0.05 will be taken as the level of statistical significant. The 95% Confidence interval (CI) around the differences will be calculated. For qualitative data, the results will be analyzed descriptively and narratively. The proposal highlights the potential of MBI for reducing young children's ST, as well as improving children-parent relationships, enhancing the efficacy and satisfaction level of the parents, and reducing the stress level of the parents.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 60
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Yuen Ling Leung, Doctor of Nursing; Phone Number: 39708751; Email: lleung@hkmu.edu.hk
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Sze Him, Isaac Leung, PhD in Statistics; Phone Number: 3943 9423; Email: shleung@cuhk.edu.hk

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

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

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• parent-child dyads resident in Hong Kong;
• child being between 2 and 6- year; and
• child with normal intellectual ability.

Exclusion Criteria:

• children with major developmental problems, history of domestic violence, drug abuse, or mental illness in the family;
• being unable to communicate and understand Cantonese as the intervention will be conducted in Cantonese; and
• parent-child dyads previous participation in mindfulness-based training for less than 6 months.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Mindfulness-based intervention on parent empowerment in reducing children's screen time (MORE); The intervention consists of 6-session mindfulness-based intervention. Each session last for 2 hours. The training will be led by an experience certified mindfulness teacher.	Behavioral: Mindfulness-based intervention on parent empowerment in reducing children's screen time (MORE); Participants will receive a 6-week MORE group training by integration of mindfulness-based component into a modified Hands-on Parent Empowerment-20 (HOPE-20) programme.
No Intervention: Waistlist control group; Participants will be required to maintain their usual daily activities without begin any mindfulness and skills programme for 6-week

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Screen time exposure - frequency	Children's screen time exposure including frequency will be record in terms of times per week	Baseline, week 6, week 18
Screen time exposure - duration	Duration will be record in terms of minutes	Baseline, week 6, week 18
Screen time exposure - nature and content	Screen time exposure, nature, and content require the parent to provide the types and names of the shows watched by their young children.	Baseline, week 6, week 18
Screen time exposure - viewing behavior	The parents are required to provide the information on young children's viewing behavior, including singing, role play, discussing issues or discussing the films and shows by selecting from the questionnaire.	Baseline, week 6, week 18
Change in parental stress level	The Parenting Stress Index - short form. It is a 36-item 5-point Likert scale with three 12-item subscales. Each item is scored from 1 to 5 (1 = "strongly disagree", 5 = "strongly agree"). The lowest score is 36, and the highest score is 180. Higher scores indicated higher parenting stress, and the cutoff point is >90.	Baseline, week 6, week 18
Change in social support adquency level	The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support Questionnaire is a 12-item questionnaire. Each item is scored from 1 to 7 (1 = "strongly disagree", 7 = "strongly agree"), the lowest score is 12 and the highest score is 84. A higher score defines higher social support from family, friends and significant others.	Baseline, week 6, week 18

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in children disruptive behavior	The Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory is a 36-item questionnaire that consists of two subscales: the intensity scale and the problem scale. The intensity scale assesses the common child behavior problems frequency from 1 to 7 (1 = "never", 7 = "always"), and the problem scale assesses the extent to which the parents find the troublesome behavior in "yes" or "no". The lowest score is 36, and the highest score is 252. Higher scores indicate more child behavior problems.	Baseline, week 6, week 18
Change in parent-child relationships	The Parenting Sense of Competence Scale is a 6-point Likert scale with 15-item. Each item is scored from 1 to 6 (1 = "strongly disagree", 6 = "strongly agree"), the lowest score is 15, and the highest score is 90. A higher score represents a better parent-child relationship	Baseline, week 6, week 18

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility of the study - recruitment and retention rate	Recruitment and retention rates will be recorded as a percentage.	week 6, week 18
Feasibility of the study - attendance rates	Attendance rates are defined as the number of training sessions a subject has attended.	week 6, week 18
Feasibility of the study - time required to recruit to target sample size	The time required to recruit to target sample size will be record in terms of week	week 6, week 18
Feasibility of the study - adverse events	Adverse events will be recorded in terms of narrative style.	week 6, week 18
Acceptability of the study	Perception and satisfaction level of the intervention programme will be assessed by questionnaire	week 6, week 18
Comments and suggestions on intervention programme	A total of 10 parent-child dyads will be invited to an hour focus group interview after the completion of the MORE programme to gather the experiences of participants. A semi-structured interview question will be used for focus group discussions and individual interviews, and an audio recorder will be used to record the dialogue of the focus group interview. The audiotaped interviews will be transcribed verbatim by a trained RA.	week 6, week 18

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Hong Kong Metropolitan University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Yuen Ling Leung, Doctor of Nursing, Hong Kong Metropolitan University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): August 1, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): September 30, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 31, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 4, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 16, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): July 24, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 24, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 16, 2025
• Last Verified: July 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: screen time exposure
• Other Study ID Numbers: RD/2025/1.7

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