JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Despite the prevalence and long-term consequences of untreated mental health conditions in young children, barriers to screening and treatment often require caregivers to shoulder the burden of understanding and aiding their children themselves, leaving them to personally seek out, filter, and apply information towards the improvement of their child’s mental and behavioral health. Accessible resources may be able to improve screening rates and patient intervention adoption. However, existing sources of child mental health information are predominantly geared towards adolescents and remain difficult to translate into actionable steps that caregivers can implement with young children.

Objective:

In this work, we sought to understand information-seeking needs, habits, and barriers and develop resources that address these issues.

Methods:

We conducted an initial online survey study (Study 1) with caregivers of children 5-10 years old(N=281). Based on mixed-method analysis of results from Study 1, our team prototyped two mental health websites: a psychoeducational website that provides caregivers with pertinent information on mental health conditions, and a strategy website that provides caregivers with flashcards with strategies for handling specific behaviors. We conducted follow-up studies with caregivers (Study 2a, N=31), pediatricians (Study 2b, N=13), and child therapists (Study 2c, N=13) to evaluate these resources.

Results:

Study 1 findings revealed that concern for their child’s mental health is high, the majority of caregivers seek information from websites over other sources, and top searches are for help managing behavior and emotions in the home, as well as how to tell typical vs. atypical child behaviors. While Study 2 findings showed that initial feasibility and acceptability of the developed resources were promising, further iterations – such as improving the usability of the strategy website and adapting content language for broader accessibility – are necessary before widespread implementation.

Conclusions:

Future research should focus on optimizing design and evaluating real-world use. Findings emphasize the need for accessible, evidence-based online tools that provide both educational content and actionable strategies, addressing key barriers to subsequent help-seeking.