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Parent Encouragement And Coaching of Happiness in Youth

University of Pittsburgh · with National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) · NCT06725160

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Opens the official ClinicalTrials.gov record, with the study team’s contacts. Bored Studies doesn’t enroll anyone.

Key facts

Compensation
Not posted. Ask the study team before screening.
Who can join
Ages 4–99 · All sexes
Healthy volunteers
Accepted
Study type
Interventional · Not applicable
Target enrollment
180
US sites recruiting
1
Study start
October 28, 2025
Record last updated
January 28, 2026

Status re-checked against ClinicalTrials.gov within the last 12 hours.

What the study is about

The goal of this mechanistic clinical trial is to examine whether parent-coaching aimed at increasing child positive affect will increase child neural response to reward. The main questions it aims to answer are:

Aim 1. Characterize child neural reward response and its relation to maternal socialization of positive emotions at baseline in healthy young children.

Aim 2. Evaluate how coaching-related changes in maternal socialization of positive emotion expression contribute to increases in child neural reward response over time.

Aim 3. Examine how maternal socialization of positive emotion expression contributes to increases in child neural reward response in the moment.

Participating mother-child dyads will be randomized to either 3 sessions of parent coaching of child positive affect or 3 sessions of a general parenting support intervention and neural response to reward and affective behavior will be examined pre and post intervention.

Being studied: Parent Coaching; Active Control

Conditions: Depression; Parent-Child Relations

Eligibility criteria

Copied from the official record. The study team makes the final decision at screening.

Show full criteria

Inclusion Criteria for Mothers

  • Birth mother (biologically female, any gender)
  • Providing regular care for participating child (i.e., at least 50% of time)
  • Elevated, clinically significant levels of depression (16 or higher on CES-D)
  • Aged 18+

Exclusion Criteria for Mothers

  • Lifetime history of a bipolar disorder
  • Lifetime history of a psychotic disorder

Inclusion Criteria for Participating Child:

-Aged 4-6 years

Exclusion Criteria for Participating Child:

  • T-score greater than 63 on the internalizing or externalizing composites of the CBCL
  • Lifetime history of a psychiatric illness
  • Lifetime history of neurodevelopmental disorder
  • Lifetime history of neurological disorder

Recruiting US locations

  • University of Pittsburgh

    Pittsburgh, PA 15213

    Site contact: Lauren M Bylsma, PhD · 412-624-8363 · BylsmaL@pitt.edu

Study contacts (from the official record)

  • Julie Research Coordinator · 412-509-8787 · PEACHY@upmc.edu
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Parent Encouragement And Coaching of Happiness in Youth (NCT06725160) | Bored Studies