The following is a summary of “Does Binge-Watching eHealth Intervention Content Impact Outcomes?” published in the October 2023  issue of Adolescent Health by Lozano, et al.

Because of progress in technology, parenting help can now be given online. This is called eHealth treatment. Only a little is known about how often parents take part in eHealth interventions, what kinds of parents watch interventions quickly (i.e., binge-watch), or how binge-watching affects the results of interventions.

About 142 Hispanic parents were randomly assigned to an eHealth family-based intervention and finished all eight online, self-paced, pre-recorded video group lessons over 12 weeks. For parents who had been to group meetings in the past two weeks or less (n = 23, 16.2%), researchers looked at initial factors such as parent sociodemographic traits, reports of their child’s externalizing behaviors, and family functioning. They used latent growth curve modeling to look at how binge-watching affected the patterns of drug use, sex without a condom, and depression symptoms in teens over the course of 36 months. They also looked at how binge-watching changed how well families worked from the start of the study to 6 months later.

Parents of kids who had trouble paying attention and parents with a lot of schooling were more likely to binge-watch. On the other hand, parents of kids with behavior disorders were less likely to binge-watch. For teens whose parents watched the intervention all at once, the number of depressed symptoms rose over time, but the number of sex sessions without a condom fell over time. There was no change in drug use. Binge-watching was also linked to parents watching their kids less. The study’s results have implications for eHealth interventions. For example, how fast parents watch eHealth interventions may affect teen outcomes like having sex without a condom and depressed symptoms.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X2300280X