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. 2024 Dec 14.
doi: 10.1007/s10578-024-01803-1. Online ahead of print.

Identifying Active Ingredients that Cause Change in Digital Parent Training Programs for Child Behavior Problems: A Qualitative Exploration

Chen R Saar  1 , Or Brandes  2 , Amit Baumel  2
Affiliations

Identifying Active Ingredients that Cause Change in Digital Parent Training Programs for Child Behavior Problems: A Qualitative Exploration

Chen R Saar et al. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. .

Abstract

Digital parent training programs (DPTs) aimed at treating child behavior problems have shown efficacy in a number of trials, but less is known about the active ingredients parents find helpful while using DPTs. We analyzed data from users of self-guided DPTs within a randomized controlled trial setting: a standard program (DPT-STD) and an enhanced program (DPT-TP). Thematic analysis of interviews (n = 16) reveals that users of both programs endorsed the "content", "content presentation", "accessibility", and "therapeutic context" as beneficial. However, only DPT-TP users identified the "therapeutic persuasiveness" as helpful, attributing this to features embedded exclusively in the enhanced program, including call-to-action reminders and assessment-based feedback. Findings were reinforced by the analysis of responses to open-ended questions from a larger sample of users (n = 31 DPT-STD users and n = 34 DPT-TP users). These findings underscore the importance of utilizing features that help parents make positive changes in their home.

Keywords: Active ingredients; Digital; Parent training; Persuasive; Qualitative.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethical Approval: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of University of Haifa (approval number: 058/22) on 12/16/2021. Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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