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BACKGROUND Anxiety is the most common childhood mental health condition and is associated with impaired child outcomes, including increased risk of mental health difficulties in adulthood. Anxiety runs in families: when a parent has anxiety, their child has a 50 per cent higher chance of developing it themselves. Environmental factors are predominant in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety and, of these, parenting processes play a major role. Interventions that target parents to support them to limit the impact of any anxiogenic parenting behaviours are associated with reduced anxiety in their children. A brief UK-based group-based intervention delivered to parents within the UK National Health Service led to a 16 per cent reduction in children meeting criteria for an anxiety disorder. However, this intervention is not widely accessible. To widen access, a nine-module online version of this intervention has been developed. This course comprises psychoeducation and home practice delivered through text, video, animations, and practice tasks. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the feasibility of delivering a brief online intervention for parents and assess its effectiveness in reducing child anxiety symptoms. METHODS A randomised controlled trial (RCT) of a community sample of 1,754 parents with self-identified high levels of anxiety with a child aged 2-11. Parents in the intervention arm to receive access to the online course, which they undertake at a self-determined rate. The control arm receives no intervention. Follow-up data collection at 6 and 9-21 months. Intention to treat analysis will be conducted on outcomes including child anxiety, child mental health symptoms and wellbeing; parental anxiety, wellbeing; and parenting behaviours. RESULTS Funded in April 2020, recruitment started in February 2021 and projected to end October 2022. CONCLUSIONS The results of the RCT will provide evidence on the utility of an online course in preventing intergenerational transmission of anxiety and increase understanding of familial anxiety. CLINICALTRIAL Prospectively registered on ClinicalTrials.Gov NCT04755933 on Feb 16th 2021.

IntroductionThe National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines acknowledge the importance of the parent–infant relationship for child development but highlight the need for further research to establish reliable tools for assessment, particularly for parents of children under 1 year. This study explores the acceptability and psychometric properties of a co-developed tool, ‘Me and My Baby’ (MaMB).Study designA cross-sectional design was applied. The MaMB was administered universally (in two sites) with mothers during routine 6–8-week Health Visitor contacts. The sample comprised 467 mothers (434 MaMB completers and 33 ‘non-completers’). Dimensionality of instrument responses were evaluated via exploratory and confirmatory ordinal factor analyses. Item response modeling was conducted via a Rasch calibration to evaluate how the tool conformed to principles of ‘fundamental measurement’. Tool acceptability was evaluated via completion rates and comparing ‘completers’ and ‘non-completers’ demographic differences on age, parity, ethnicity, and English as an additional language. Free-text comments were summarized. Data sharing agreements and data management were compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation, and University of York data management policies.ResultsHigh completion rates suggested the MaMB was acceptable. Psychometric analyses showed the response data to be an excellent fit to a unidimensional confirmatory factor analytic model. All items loaded statistically significantly and substantially (>0.4) on a single underlying factor (latent variable). The item response modeling showed that most MaMB items fitted the Rasch model. (Rasch) item reliability was high (0.94) yet the test yielded little information on each respondent, as highlighted by the relatively low ‘person separation index’ of 0.1.Conclusion and next stepsMaMB reliably measures a single construct, likely to be infant bonding. However, further validation work is needed, preferably with ‘enriched population samples’ to include higher-need/risk families. The MaMB tool may benefit from reduced response categories (from four to three) and some modest item wording amendments. Following further validation and reliability appraisal the MaMB may ultimately be used with fathers/other primary caregivers and be potentially useful in research, universal health settings as part of a referral pathway, and clinical practice, to identify dyads in need of additional support/interventions.

Admiration is a social emotion that is developmentally formative in emerging adulthood; admired adults act as mentors, role models, and sources of inspiration to this age-group. The present study explored who and what emerging adults admire in their elders, across four countries (UK, Iran, China, and Russia). A total of 525 participants provided written descriptions of an admired figure. Across all cultures, care and generativity was the most common theme. Cross-cultural differences emerged for the themes of limitations and difficulties (most prevalent in China), autonomy and assertiveness (most prevalent in Russia), intellect and education (most prevalent in Russia), and religion and spirituality (most prevalent in Iran). Males and females in the UK and Russia tended to select admired figures of their own sex, but in Iran and China both male and female participants selected more male than female figures. The findings suggest a common thematic core to admiration in emerging adulthood combined with culturally specific features.