Family Based Mindfulness Intervention

Yale University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Parental and Child Obesity; Parent and Child Stress; Parental Stress; Child Obesity

Treatments: Behavioral: Lifestyle counseling; Behavioral: Parenting Mindfully for Health (PMH)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT01974102

5R21AT007708 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

1306012264

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of the proposed interdisciplinary study is to assess feasibility of recruiting a pilot sample of parents of toddlers and engaging them in a pilot study to test a version of mindfulness-based intervention for parenting stress reduction (PMH), an empirically-supported stress-reduction intervention, plus nutrition and physical activity counseling for parents of preschoolers (aged 2-5); to reduce parent (and child) stress levels; improve parenting; promote healthy eating and physical activity in parent and child; and prevent overweight and obesity in preschoolers with an obese parent.

Full description

This project was a preliminary feasibility and pilot efficacy study to assess stressed low income parents of toddlers who were obese to assess whether a mindfulness based parenting intervention (PMH) can reduce their stress, increase parenting and improve family healthy food and physical activity choices. Parents and toddlers also participated in a Toy Wait Task, a behavioral assay of parenting.The empirically-supported stress-reduction intervention, plus nutrition and physical activity counseling (Control) for parents of preschoolers (aged 2-5) was compared to a nutrition and physical activity counseling alone condition to assess whether PMH improved toddler weight, physical activity and parent emotion regulation and healthy eating.

Enrollment: 42 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 2 to 70 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Between ages 18-70 years;
2. Able to read and write (parent)
3. Family with a child between 2-5 years old
4. BMI of parent in obese category
5. High parenting stress (mean score of >=3 on 3 questions from Parenting Stress Index)

Exclusion criteria

1. Any psychotic disorder or current psychiatric symptoms for child or parent requiring specific attention, including active symptoms of psychosis or suicidal/homicidal ideation
2. Diagnosis of mental retardation, autism or other pervasive developmental disorder for child
3. Inability to give informed consent
4. Current serious medical disorder precluding participation in physical activity

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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42 participants in 2 patient groups

lifestyle

Active Comparator group

Description:

Attentional control group will receive weekly meeting to view relaxing video and facilitate discussion along with counseling on nutrition and physical activity for 8 weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Lifestyle counseling

therapy

Experimental group

Description:

Active group will receive weekly mindfulness based parenting stress reduction (PMH) plus nutrition and physical activity counseling for 8 weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Parenting Mindfully for Health (PMH)

Behavioral: Lifestyle counseling