Parental perfectionistic cognitions in a self-compassion intervention
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The role of parental perfectionistic cognitions in an intervention to improve self-compassion and reduce shame: Findings in the context of child chronic health conditions.
IRAS ID
240289
Contact name
Catherine Lilley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Sheffield
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 23 days
Research summary
This application is for one of two studies using the same baseline data. The overall project incorporating both studies is to explore parenting difficulties in the context of caring for a child with a long-term health condition (LTC).
Parents of children with LTCs typically have more parental tasks or responsibilities to manage than parents of children without LTCs. This creates increased opportunities for parenting events which may not always go to plan. Evidence suggests: (1) that parents can feel shame after such parenting events; (2) that people with low self-compassion (i.e. less able to respond to themselves with common humility, forgiveness, and kindness) are more likely to feel shame; and (3) that low self-compassion is related to perfectionistic cognitions (i.e. automatic thoughts about perfectionism; PCs). Therefore, if a parent makes a mistake related to managing their child’s LTC, those who are less self-compassionate may have thoughts such as "I should have done better" and feel shame. We hypothesise that PCs mediate a relationship between self-compassion and shame.
An online self-compassion intervention (SCI) has been shown to reduce parental shame (citation: Sirois, F. M., Bogels, S. & Emerson, L. (under review). Self-compassion reduces guilt and shame in response to challenging parenting events. Manuscript submitted to The Journal of Psychology). However, the SCI has not been studied with parents of children with LTCs.
This study will test the SCI with parents of children with type 1 diabetes, epilepsy or asthma and assess for a relationship between shame, PTs and self-compassion. Parents will complete online questionnaires pre- and post a SCI/control intervention. Hypotheses will be tested using analysis of covariance (controlling for parental age, sex, child LTC and duration of LTC) and moderation analyses. Findings will enhance knowledge of vulnerability factors to distress for parents of children with LTCs, and inform interventions.
REC name
South Central - Oxford A Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/SC/0332
Date of REC Opinion
16 Jul 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion