Background

Parents and carers of autistic children report poor mental health. Autism stigma is a strong contributing factor to poor parental mental health, yet there are currently no interventions available that are evidenced to improve parents' mental health in part through increasing resilience to stigma. Childcare and travel are well known barriers to attendance and attrition rates for this population are high.

Methods

A blended format psychosocial group support intervention was developed with the aim to improve parental mental health. Three sessions were delivered face to face, and five sessions via videoconference. A secret Facebook group was set up to support the intervention and increase retention rates. Mixed methods were used to assess the feasibility and acceptability of this mode of delivery for both the facilitator and service users. Attendance rates, fidelity and implementation issues are discussed. A qualitative focus group was conducted (n = 9) to explore the acceptability to the participants. Framework analysis was used to analyse the findings.

Results

Attendance rates were high with the online sessions having significantly higher attendance rates than the face to face sessions. The findings of the qualitative evaluation suggest that participants are positive about videoconferencing for a group support intervention. The facilitator reported sound quality, background distractions and late arrivals as challenges; the participants on the other hand, reported that the benefits far outweighed the negatives. Suggestions for improvement are made.

Conclusions

The results suggest that videoconference is a well-received method to provide a group support intervention to parents. Only preliminary conclusions can be drawn, owing to the small sample size.

中文翻译：

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使用混合形式（视频会议和面对面）向自闭症儿童的父母提供群体心理社会干预。

背景

自闭症儿童的父母和照顾者报告说他们的心理健康状况不佳。自闭症污名是导致父母心理健康状况不佳的一个重要因素，但目前没有证据表明可以通过提高对污名的复原力来改善父母的心理健康的干预措施。儿童保育和旅行是众所周知的出勤障碍，而且这一人群的流失率很高。

方法

开发了一种混合形式的社会心理团体支持干预措施，旨在改善父母的心理健康。三个会议是面对面进行的，五个会议是通过视频会议进行的。建立了一个秘密的 Facebook 小组来支持干预并提高保留率。使用混合方法来评估这种交付方式对促进者和服务用户的可行性和可接受性。讨论了出席率、保真度和实施问题。进行了定性焦点小组 ( n  = 9) 以探索参与者的可接受性。框架分析用于分析结果。

结果

出席率很高，在线会议的出席率明显高于面对面会议。定性评估的结果表明，参与者对视频会议进行团体支持干预持积极态度。主持人报告了音质、背景干扰和迟到是挑战；另一方面，参与者报告说，好处远远超过了负面影响。提出改进建议。

结论

结果表明，视频会议是一种为家长提供团体支持干预的广受欢迎的方法。由于样本量小，只能得出初步结论。