Study title

During the COVID-19 lockdown, families faced numerous challenges, including extended joint confinement, isolation, increased demands on parents, and financial worries. Co-SPACE, a study tracking changes in families' mental health, found a rise in behavior problems among children, causing stress for parents. Many parents expressed a need for additional support, preferably in digital form. These problems are likely to persist and increase as the pandemic continues, affecting schools and children's services. To address this, the SPARKLE project developed the Parent Positive app, featuring animated videos and practical tips on managing children's behavior. The study involved 616 Co-SPACE parents testing the app's effect on children's behavior. Positive results would lead to wider availability of the app through collaboration with public health and education authorities. The archived data is from three timepoints of 646 families involved in the SPARKLE trial.The first COVID-19 lockdown and continuing restrictions on everyday life have presented families with unprecedented challenges. Extended joint confinement, often within very limited space, isolation from friends and family, increased demands on parents to deliver childcare in face of often increased work demands, mental and physical health-related and money-related worries, have placed relationships between parents and with their children under great pressure. Consistent with this, Co-SPACE, a nationwide study tracking changes in families' mental health since early lockdown, found a significant rise in parent-reported children's behaviour problems and associated family-related stress. Strikingly, 70% of parents in Co-SPACE reported wanting additional support preferably delivered in digital form. These problems are likely to persist if left unaddressed. There is also widespread concern amongst professionals that they may increase further as the pandemic continues, and with it the restrictions put on people's...