Our long-term research goal is to establish a self-sustainable faith-based culturally and linguistically relevant child mental health promotion intervention in Korean American (KA) churches. As the first step to achieving this goal, a draft of the Korean Parent Training (KPT) was developed, per Korean parents and churches requests, to address culture and faith (i.e., social determinant of health), as means to promote positive parenting practices (i.e., behavioral determinant of health) and to decrease child (ages 6-8) mental health disparities. However, KPT has not been tested with KA families in a faith-based context. For this R21, KA churches requested a parent training as a way to collaboratively educate KA parents and researchers about how best to offer parent training (i.e., unique faith elements). This proposed R21 project was collaboratively designed for two purposes: 1) to work jointly with KA churches to increase the relevance of the KPT to Korean cultural and faith beliefs regarding parenting practices and 2) to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of the revised KPT program. A Community Advisory Board (CAB) consists of 12 Parenting Ministry Volunteers from 4 KA churches (3 from each church: a parent of child age 6- 8, an adult who will be trained as a co-KPT group leader and one natural leader who is interested in parenting). CAB also includes a community research associate and a research coordinator who will be hired from a partner church. The CAB will share decision- making power in all phases of this CBPR research and mutually own the project outcomes. Given the nature of CBPR, the exact methods used in this study will be mutually agreed upon before implementation. For this application, the CAB collaboratively developed the following specific aims:
Aim 1 : Strengthen the partnership between academic and KA churches as measured by the joint development of the CAB organizational structure and mission statement.
Aim 2 : Collaborate with CAB to revise the current draft of KPT to improve its sensitivity to Korean culture and faith, and increase acceptability and likelihood of being adopted by parents.
Aim 3. Collaborate with CAB to generate pilot data to begin assessing effectiveness of the KPT on parenting and child mental health using a group randomized controlled experimental study design.
Aim 4. Determine the acceptability and feasibility of the proposed intervention design (e.g., recruitment and retention methods, intervention content, delivery format, length of the program, participant burden). This collaboratively designed R21, which tests an intervention for child health disparity reduction using a faith- based CBPR approach, will be among the first to develop an evidence-based Korean parent training program with cultural, linguistic, and faith relevance. If successfully carried out, the research would provide the intervention design that will be used in a CBPR RO1 application with a larger sample.
This faith-based R21 project is collaboratively designed to work jointly with Korean churches to determine how to design and test the acceptability and feasibility of the Korean Parent Training Program. This program is developed to promote Korean American child mental health through parent training. This program will be offered by partnering with Korean churches, a critical social determinant of health for this population.
| Kim, Eunjung; Im, Eun-Ok (2015) Korean-Americans' Knowledge about Depression and Attitudes about Treatment Options. Issues Ment Health Nurs 36:455-63 |
| Kim, Eunjung; Cain, Kevin; Boutain, Doris et al. (2014) Pilot study of the Korean parent training program using a partial group-randomized experimental study. J Child Adolesc Psychiatr Nurs 27:121-31 |
| Kim, Eunjung (2012) Marital adjustment and depressive symptoms in Korean Americans. Issues Ment Health Nurs 33:370-6 |
