Participant Acceptability of an Online-Based Parenting Intervention for Parents of Latino Adolescents

Background and Purpose: Families Preparing the New Generation Plus (FPNG+) is a parenting intervention focusing on substance use prevention and diet quality improvement among Latino adolescents, originally designed for face-to-face implementation in school settings. Given restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the research team took a community-based participatory research approach to decide if and how the intervention could be delivered virtually. Based on feedback from stakeholders including past participants and facilitators, the team adapted the program to a synchronous online-based intervention by creating short informational videos, re-designing workshop materials to increase their visual appeal, and adapting small group workshop activities to hold them within online breakout rooms. The team implemented a pilot study to assess the feasibility and acceptability of this online program.

Methods: Parents of 6^th-8^th grade adolescents (n=34; 100% female; 42±5 years; 100% self-identified as Mexican/Hispanic/Latinx) enrolled in a 10-workshop program delivered in real time via weekly Zoom sessions in Spanish. The two-hour sessions were led by a trained facilitator and included interactive discussions, breakout room activities, short videos, workbook activities, and homework assignments. Parents’ workbooks also included a short training guide on how to use Zoom. At the end of the last workshop, participants answered survey questions about their experience with technology use and the new workshop design to assess participants’ comfort and acceptability of the online intervention.

Results: On a scale from 1 to 5 (1=Hated it; 5=Loved it), overall satisfaction with the workshops (4.94±0.24), entire group discussions (4.62±0.55), breakout room discussions (4.58±0.56), and short informational videos (4.58±0.56), was very high. Participants reported that the online workshops made it easy to pay attention (3.85±0.36; 1=Strongly disagree; 4=Strongly agree), that they felt comfortable participating in the online workshops (1.15±0.36; 1=Extremely comfortable; 4=Very uncomfortable), and that there was an appropriate amount of interaction among participants (1.41±0.67; 1=Great deal of interaction; 3=Very little interaction). Participants also found the Zoom controls helpful to use for participation in group activities (1.26±0.51; 1=Very helpful; 3=Not helpful).

Conclusions and Implications: Overall, results indicate the adaptations helped design an acceptable online parenting program. Findings suggest that Latino parents are open to attending online interventions, and that these can be acceptable for participants, given enough opportunities to interact with other attendees. Developing and implementing acceptable prevention programs can help bridge the digital gap and make programs available whenever in person participation may not be feasible.