Parental Information Needs and Intervention Preferences for Preventing Multiple Lifestyle Risk Behaviors Among Adolescents: Cross-sectional Survey Among Parents

Abstract

Background Parents play an influential role in the health behaviors of their children, such as physical activity, dietary intake, sleep, screen time, and substance use. However, further research is needed to inform the development of more effective and engaging parent-based interventions targeting adolescent risk behaviors. Objective This study aimed to assess parents’ knowledge about adolescent risk behaviors, barriers and facilitators to engaging in healthy behaviors, and preferences for a parent-based prevention intervention. Methods An anonymous web-based survey was conducted from June 2022 to August 2022. Eligible participants were parents of children aged 11 to 18 years and were residing in Australia at the time of this study. The survey assessed the parents’ perceived and actual knowledge about Australian health guidelines for youth, parent and adolescent engagement in health behaviors, parenting style and attitudes, barriers and facilitators to engaging in healthy behaviors, and delivery and component preferences for a parent-based preventive intervention. Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions were conducted to analyze the data. Results A total of 179 eligible participants completed the survey. The mean age of the parents was 42.22 (SD 7.03) years, and 63.1% (101/160) were female. Parent-reported sleep duration was high for both parents (mean 8.31, SD 1.00 hours) and adolescents (mean 9.18, SD 0.94 hours). However, the proportion of parents who reported that their child met the national recommendations for physical activity (5/149, 3.4%), vegetable intake (7/126, 5.6%), and weekend recreational screen time (7/130, 5.4%) was very low. Overall, parents’ perceived knowledge of health guidelines was moderate, ranging from 50.6% (80/158) for screen time to 72.8% (115/158) for sleep guidelines (for children aged 5-13 years). Actual knowledge was lowest for vegetable intake and physical activity, with only 44.2% (46/104) and 42% (31/74) of parents reporting correct guidelines for these behaviors, respectively. The key issues of concern reported by parents were excessive use of technology, mental health, e-cigarette use, and negative peer relationships. The top-rated delivery method for a parent-based intervention was via a website (53/129, 41.1%). The highest rated intervention component was opportunities for goal-setting (89/126, 70.7% rated very or extremely important), and other important program features were ease of use (89/122, 72.9%), paced learning (79/126, 62.7%), and appropriate program length (74/126, 58.8%). Conclusions The findings suggest that such interventions should be brief and web based and should aim to increase parental knowledge of health guidelines; provide opportunities for skill-building, such as goal-setting; and include effective behavior change techniques, such as motivational interviewing and social support. This study will inform the development of future parent-based preventive interventions to prevent multiple lifestyle risk behaviors among adolescents.

Exploring the association between adolescent‐perceived parental monitoring on dietary intake

“…Parental consent and student consent were obtained, and 6639 students participated in an online self‐report survey in 2019. A full report on the baseline characteristics of the Health4Life sample has been published previously (Champion et al, 2023 ). Ethical approval was gained from the University Ethics Committees, NSW Department of Education, and relevant Catholic school committees.…”

“…Future research should also monitor parenting practices specific to diet and explore different parenting styles in comparison with parental monitoring, such as initiatives like Triple P (teaching positive parenting practices)(Pickering, 2013), other food parenting practices or household food inventories. A recent survey of adults found that out of all health behaviours parents chose dietary habits as the behaviour they would most like to change for themselves and their adolescents(Champion et al, 2023), therefore combined interventions moving forward should aim to target both the parents and the adolescents to improving adolescent diet and overall food environments at home. 5 | CONCLUSION Our results contribute knowledge specifically around perceived parental monitoring's association with adolescent dietary intake, a factor contributing to overall parenting style.…”