title: Parental emotional management benefits family relationships: A randomized controlled trial in Hong Kong, China.
abstract: There is a shortage of culturally appropriate, brief, preventive interventions designed to be sustainable and acceptable for community participants in nonwestern cultures. Parents' ability to regulate their emotions is an important factor for psychological well-being of the family. In Chinese societies, emotional regulation may be more important in light of the cultural desirability of maintaining harmonious family relationships. The objectives of our randomized controlled trial were to test the effectiveness of our Effective Parenting Programme (EPP) to increase the use of emotional management strategies (primary outcome) and enhance the parent-child relationship (secondary outcome). We utilized design characteristics that promoted recruitment, retention, and intervention sustainability. We randomized a community sample of 412 Hong Kong middle- and low-income mothers of children aged 6-8 years to the EPP or attention control group. At 3, 6 and 12- month follow up, the Effective Parent Program group reported greater increases in the use of emotion management strategies during parent-child interactions, with small to medium effect size, and lower negative affect and greater positive affect, subjective happiness, satisfaction with the parent-child relationship, and family harmony, compared to the control group, with small to medium effect size. Our results provided evidence of effectiveness for a sustainable, preventive, culturally appropriate, cognitive behaviorally-based emotion management program, in a non-clinical setting for Chinese mothers.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  HKCTR-1190.
authors.affiliation: The University of Hong Kong, School of Public Health, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Cecilia S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Fabrizio
authors.affiliation: The University of Hong Kong, School of Public Health, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong. Electronic address: hrmrlth@hkucc.hku.hk.
authors.forename: Tai Hing
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.affiliation: The University of Hong Kong, School of Public Health, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Malia R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Hirschmann
authors.affiliation: Caritas-Hong Kong, 2 Caine Road, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pang
authors.affiliation: The University of Hong Kong, School of Public Health, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Nancy Xiaonan
authors.initials: NX
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: The University of Hong Kong, School of Public Health, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: The University of Hong Kong, School of Public Health, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Sunita M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Stewart
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods; D054521:Cultural Competency; D003469:Culture; D004644:Emotions; D054541:Family Conflict / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Chinese cultural groups; Cognitive behavioral therapy; Emotional regulation; Parent training; Prevention