Jockey Club Support Project

City University of Hong Kong

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Resilience; Family Relations; Emotion Regulation

Treatments: Behavioral: Moderation in Consumer Electronics Use Training; Behavioral: Emotion Regulation Skills Training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07136064

Jockey Club Support Project

Details and patient eligibility

About

Guided by the process model of emotion regulation, integrative affect-regulation framework for resilience, and the reciprocal dynamics of emotion, affect, and resilience in the family system, researchers will develop a parallel intervention to incorporate two key members in Mainland-Hong Kong cross-boundary families: a parent and a child by improving their affect/emotion regulation skills, de-escalate family conflicts, and flourish under hardships. Specifically, researchers predict that participants in the intervention group will report greater improvement in resilience, emotion regulation, psychological well-being, family harmony, and social connectedness than those in the control group.

Full description

Researchers will conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) intervention study targeting cross-boundary families' affect/emotion regulation skills as well as personal and family resilience. Researchers will implement two arms with the allocation ratio of 2:1. As most cross-boundary children are preoccupied with after-school academies and extracurricular activities, participating parents will receive four group activity sessions, while children will receive two sessions. The intervention themes and skills are the same for parents and children but condensed for children.

Researchers will collaborate with the International Social Services Hong Kong Branch (Shenzhen) (hereinafter referred to as "ISS"), an NGO that has served cross-boundary families in Shenzhen for over 30 years.

Enrollment: 450 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria for Parents:

1. have at least one child aged 12 years or above;
2. can participate in the intervention with their child;
3. are Hong Kong residents or have a family member who is a Hong Kong resident;
4. live in Shenzhen.

Inclusion Criteria for Children:

1. are 12 years or above;
2. are Hong Kong residents or have a family member who is a Hong Kong resident;
3. live in Shenzhen.

Exclusion Criteria:

(a) those who have current diagnoses of severe physical or mental illnesses;

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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450 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention Arm

Experimental group

Description:

This arm will receive training in emotion regulation skills, including mindfulness skills to help redeploy their attention, cognitive reappraisal skills to analyze stimuli or emotion-eliciting events from a more comprehensive perspective, situation change skills to regulate emotions by exposing oneself to nature, experiential acceptance skills through self-talk, and breathing techniques. They will also receive training in theories of the family emotion system.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Emotion Regulation Skills Training

Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

This arm will be trained to moderate their and their family members' use of commercial electronics. They will do so by learning mechanisms behind addictions, family communication skills, and various substitute activities for commercial electronics usage.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Moderation in Consumer Electronics Use Training