Promoting recently arrived immigrant parents' adjustment and well-being
| ISRCTN | ISRCTN18346856 |
|---|---|
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN18346856 |
| Secondary identifying numbers | 2018-05756 |
- Submission date
- 29/09/2023
- Registration date
- 03/11/2023
- Last edited
- 12/12/2024
- Recruitment status
- Recruiting
- Overall study status
- Ongoing
- Condition category
- Other
Plain English Summary
Background and study aims
Parenting an adolescent child is often challenging due to the massive psychological, physiological, and social-relational changes that adolescents go through. Parents of adolescents who recently migrated into a new social-cultural context may be at particular risk for experiencing elevated stress and frustration due to their limited knowledge of the culture, institutions and social system. Thus, they may not be able to provide support and guidance to their adolescent child who may need additional support in navigating and socially integrating in the host society. The current parenting program, PIA Parent Program, targets parents who arrived in Sweden after 2015, following the major immigration crisis in Europe. Sweden admitted the highest number of refugees in 2015 and the following couple of years relative to its population size all over Europe. Thus, supporting the adjustment and well-being of the newly arrived families became a major concern. The program uses the parent training approach. Parents in groups, with the help of one or two group leaders, discuss the themes in weekly meetings over four weeks. The main focus and the content of the sessions have been developed based on extant literature on immigrant and refugee parents' experiences of resettlement, and a set of interviews which aimed to examine the recently arrived parents' experiences and concerns in Sweden. The goal of this study is to test the effects of a parenting program that aims to promote parenting skills and efficacy of recently arrived immigrant parents who have a child between ages 10 to 18 years old.
Who can participate?
Parents of 10- to 18-year-old children who migrated to Sweden after 2015
What does the study involve?
The program uses the well-established parent training paradigm to promote parents' skills in helping their children become resilient citizens of society. The program aims to promote the skills to be good role models, improve relationships with their children, develop their communication skills, increase knowledge about the Swedish school system, and skills that may promote the engagement of parents in their child's schooling.
What are the possible benefits and risks of participating?
The participants of the PIA Parent Program have the opportunity to develop a new perspective on challenges related to immigration, develop feelings of efficacy in handling and overcoming these challenges, and acquire tools they can use to promote their own and their adolescent children’s adjustment and social integration. In fact, the pilot tests of this program showed that the parents found participation enjoyable and considered the content of the program relevant and helpful.
The discussions during the program sessions are not about negative experiences or private matters. However, discussions may evoke emotions in some participants. Therefore, the facilitators will be trained in communication skills and in recognizing if something like this is happening. The participants are also informed that their participation is voluntary, and they can leave the session or the study at any time. The group leader and research leader will serve as contact persons if participants feel the need to talk to someone after the session.
Where is the study run from?
Örebro University (Sweden)
When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for?
January 2023 to December 2025
Who is funding the study?
Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council)
Who is the main contact?
Dr Metin Ozdemir, metin.ozdemir@oru.se (Sweden)
Contact information
Principal Investigator
Örebro University
School of Behavioural, Social and Legal Sciences
Örebro
70182
Sweden
 ORCID ID |
0000-0001-7009-5955 |
|---|---|
| Phone | +4619301246 |
| metin.ozdemir@oru.se |
Scientific
Örebro University
School of Behavioural, Social and Legal Sciences
Örebro
70182
Sweden
| Phone | +4619301246 |
|---|---|
| metin.ozdemir@oru.se |
Public
Örebro University
School of Behavioural, Social and Legal Sciences
Örebro
70182
Sweden
| Phone | +4619301246 |
|---|---|
| metin.ozdemir@oru.se |
Study information
| Study design | Randomized waiting-list controlled study |
|---|---|
| Primary study design | Interventional |
| Secondary study design | Randomised controlled trial |
| Study setting(s) | Community |
| Study type | Prevention |
| Participant information sheet | Not available in web format, please use the contact details to request a participant information sheet |
| Scientific title | Promoting recently arrived immigrant parents' adjustment and well-being: cluster randomized trial of the PIA Parent Program |
| Study acronym | PIAParent |
| Study hypothesis | 1. How effective is the PIA Parent Program in promoting parent-child relationship quality, communication, efficacy to support a child's schooling, resilience, optimism about the future, sense of societal belonging, views about Swedish society, self-report of stress and health, and subjective well-being at post-tests and 3-months follow-up? 2. Does the program promote parents' psychological well-being, resilience, and optimism through improved sense of parenting skills and efficacy? 3. What are the mechanisms that may explain the changes in parents’ parenting experiences, efficacy, well-being, sense of belonging and optimism about the future? 4. Do parents' initial level of stress and well-being predict the program outcomes at post-test and follow-up? 5. Do parents' sociodemographic background and migration-related experiences moderate the program outcomes? 6. What are the participants' own perspectives of their participation and the benefits of the program? 7. How does the program implementation process predict program outcomes for parents? 8. How do the characteristics of the program leaders predict their efficacy in implementing the program and program outcomes for the parents? 9. What are the predictors of satisfaction with the program, participation rate, and drop-out? 10. Is the PIA Parent Program cost-effective? 11. Other research questions concern parents’ demographic characteristics, migration histories, experiences with the program and group leaders, program content, and potential iatrogenic effects. |
| Ethics approval(s) |
Approved 09/05/2023, Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Box 2110, Uppsala, 75002, Sweden; +46-10-475 08 00; registrator@etikprovning.se), ref: 2023-01235-01 |
| Condition | Promoting the adjustment and well-being of recently arrived immigrant parents in Sweden. |
| Intervention | The PIA-Parent program is a short parenting support program to promote newly arrived refugee parents' skills in helping their children become resilient citizens of society. The intervention focuses on important themes in parenting and the aim is to increase the level of knowledge about being a parent of teenagers in a new cultural context. The program aims to give parents the skills to be good role models, improve attachment to their children, develop their communication skills, and increase knowledge about the Swedish school system and their obligations and rights as parents. The intervention also focuses on how to communicate with the school and how parents can support their children's schoolwork. Finally, the intervention focuses on helping parents to encourage their children to become part of society such as to join a sports or cultural association to promote their sense of belonging. These topics are covered in four meetings. The study is a randomized controlled trial, in which the participants will be randomly assigned to: 1. The PIA Parent Program (Active intervention) 2. A waiting-list control condition The program will take four weeks. After 3 months of follow-up, participants assigned to the waiting-list control condition will be offered the intervention program. Participants in both conditions will be assessed at pre-test, four weeks after the pre-test (post-test) and 3 months after the pre-test (follow-up). |
| Intervention type | Behavioural |
| Primary outcome measure | 1. Parent-child relationship quality measured using the secure-base subscale of the Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI) at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up 2. Warmth measured using the warmth subscale of the Family Check-up (FCU) Caregiver Assessment Scale at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up 3. Conflict measured using the conflict subscale of the FCU Caregiver Assessment Scale at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up 4. Parent-child communication measured using the companionship subscale of the Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI) at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up 5. Parents’ perceived efficacy to support their child’s schooling measured using the Parental Self-Efficacy for Helping the Child Succeed in School Scale at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up |
| Secondary outcome measures | 1. Optimism about the future measured using an adapted version of the Optimism Scale (EPOCH) at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. The original items were revised to assess optimism related to the future of the family. 2. Parental resilience measured using the Rugged Resilience Measure (RRM) at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up 3. Self-report of stress and health measured using the Refugee Health Screener (RHS-13) pre-test, post-test, and follow-up 4. Subjective well-being measured using the Well-being Index by WHO (WHO-5) at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up 5. Sense of societal belonging measured using the adult version of the Societal Belongingness measure developed based on the Adolescents’ Societal Belongingness Scale (ASBS) at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up 6. Views about society measured using the Views about the Swedish Society Scale (VS) at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up |
| Overall study start date | 01/01/2023 |
| Overall study end date | 31/12/2025 |
Eligibility
| Participant type(s) | Population |
|---|---|
| Age group | Mixed |
| Lower age limit | 25 Years |
| Upper age limit | 100 Years |
| Sex | Both |
| Target number of participants | 30 groups, with 6-10 participants in each group leading to N=180-300 |
| Participant inclusion criteria | 1. The parents immigrated to Sweden in 2015 or later 2. The parents have been in Sweden for a minimum of 6 months and have at least one child between the ages of 10 to 18 years old 3. The parents should be able to follow the programs in Swedish or in one of the other languages that the program materials are available: Arabic, Dari, Kurdish, Somalian, and Tigrinya. |
| Participant exclusion criteria | Participants who self-report that they currently receive treatment for a psychological problem or psychiatric illness |
| Recruitment start date | 23/05/2023 |
| Recruitment end date | 30/06/2025 |
Locations
Countries of recruitment
- Sweden
Study participating centre
Örebro
70182
Sweden
Sponsor information
University/education
Fakultetsgatan 1
Örebro
70182
Sweden
| Phone | +46 19 30 30 00 |
|---|---|
| registrator@oru.se | |
| Website | https://www.oru.se/english/ |
Funders
Funder type
Research council
Government organisation / National government
- Alternative name(s)
- Swedish Research Council, VR
- Location
- Sweden
Results and Publications
| Intention to publish date | 01/06/2026 |
|---|---|
| Individual participant data (IPD) Intention to share | Yes |
| IPD sharing plan summary | Available on request |
| Publication and dissemination plan | The results will be published in form of scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. They will also be presented at conferences and reported back to the stake holders in various formats. |
| IPD sharing plan | The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are/will be available upon request from Dr Metin Ozdemir, metin.ozdemir@oru.se. Individual participant data regarding the primary and secondary outcomes collected during the trial will be shared after the deidentification and publication of the key studies. Data will be provided along with the study protocol and codebook to researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal to achieve the aims in the approved research proposal and for individual participant data meta-analysis, given that there is no ethical and legal restriction. To gain access, data requestors will need to sign a data access agreement. |
Editorial Notes
12/12/2024: The recruitment end date was changed from 31/12/2024 to 30/06/2025.
25/10/2023: Study's existence confirmed by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority.
