Development and Evaluation of a Tailored Online Parenting Intervention to Prevent Clinical Anxiety and Depression in Children

This thesis presents the development and evaluation of a tailored online parenting program that aims to prevent clinical anxiety and depression in children. Drawing upon a set of evidence-informed and expert-endorsed parenting guidelines for the prevention of child anxiety and depression, the work involved the development of: (a) a new measure of parenting practices and (b) a novel parenting program using the aforesaid measure as a tailoring tool. A randomized controlled trial of this parenting program (known as ‘Parenting Resilient Kids’) revealed that parents who received this tailored intervention reported greater improvement in parenting practices at 12-month follow-up, compared to parents who received a standardized intervention. It is proposed that tailored, online parenting interventions offer promise in the universal prevention of child anxiety and depressive disorders.