Brief Intervention Addressing Stigma Among Parents of Children With Mental Health Problems

Brief video-based interventions (BVIs) have been studied as a means of reducing stigma toward mental health problems and increasing help-seeking. "Contact-based interventions," in which a representative of a stigmatized group shares their personal stories, have been found one of the most effective anti-stigma interventions. Effective contact-based interventions target to a specific population, account for the specific interests of that population, and credibly provide stories that highlight recovery in a plausible manner to moderately disconfirm stereotypes. BVIs package contact-based stigma interventions into short (1-2 minute) messages in the style of social media content. Prior RCTs have tested BVIs targeting depression-related stigma in adolescents, featuring a young person describing experiences with depressive symptoms, that improved as they sought support from parents and professionals. Parents often experience stigma to their children's mental health problems and play a critical gate-keeping role for children accessing mental health treatment. Additionally, parental stigma is associated with child mental health outcomes, and potential mediators between parental stigma and child outcomes including parental wellbeing, attitudes toward the child, help-seeking, and self-efficacy. Thus, the investigators hypothesize that BVIs targeted to parents of children with similar mental health conditions (e.g., depression, ADHD, or substance use) will have greater impact on reducing stigma and increasing treatment intentions than generic written psychoeducational content without a social contact component.

This study will measure distinct stigma-related outcomes relevant to parents of children with mental health problems:

• Parental internalized stigma
• Treatment intentions
• Treatment engagement
• Attitudes toward the child
• Caregiver burden
• Self-efficacy
• secrecy coping (i.e., to avoid potential negative repercussions of stigma).

Inclusion criteria

• Self-identify as English Speaking
• Live in the US
• Ages 25-50
• Have a child 6-18 years old with either depression, ADHD, or a substance use problem

Exclusion criteria

• Do not speak English
• Do not live in the US
• <25 or >50
• Do not have a child between ages 6-18 with depression, ADHD, or a substance use problem