Parental Beliefs, Attention, and Action in Child Mental Health

Last registered on July 13, 2026

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Parental Beliefs, Attention, and Action in Child Mental Health

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0018906

Initial registration date

July 09, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

July 13, 2026, 7:55 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name

Lichen Zhang

Affiliation

University of Hong Kong

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Shijun Gu

PI Affiliation

Central University of Finance and Economics

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Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2026-05-08

End date

2026-09-30

Keywords

Behavior, Education, Health

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

I12, I24, I18, I31, J24

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Many parents care deeply about their children’s well-being, but it can be difficult to know when a child is experiencing emotional distress, especially if the child does not openly share these feelings. Parents may therefore underestimate symptoms such as stress, sadness, sleep problems, or school avoidance. This study tests whether brief informational messages can change parents’ beliefs and intended responses to adolescent mental health. Parents of middle- and high-school students first answer questions about their child’s emotional state, their views on adolescent mental health, and how they would respond to child distress. They are then randomly assigned to receive either general information or short messages about hidden child distress, the possible long-term consequences of adolescent mental-health problems, or the importance of considering mental health alongside academic achievement. Afterward, parents answer follow-up questions about their beliefs, concerns, priorities, and intended actions, such as talking with the child, reducing academic pressure, seeking help, or spending more supportive time with the child. The study examines whether low-cost information can improve parental awareness and encourage more supportive responses to adolescent mental-health needs.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Gu, Shijun and Lichen Zhang. 2026. "Parental Beliefs, Attention, and Action in Child Mental Health." AEA RCT Registry. July 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18906-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention consists of brief information messages delivered to parents during an online parent survey. Parents first report baseline beliefs about their child’s recent mental-health state. They are then randomly assigned to receive either control information or information related to adolescent mental health. Treatment messages are designed to make salient one or more of the following: the possibility that parents may underestimate children’s hidden emotional distress; the longer-run consequences of adolescent mental-health problems for later mental health, education, life satisfaction, and labor-market outcomes; and the importance of treating child mental health as an intrinsic parental objective alongside academic performance. The intervention is delivered within the survey, and outcomes are measured immediately after the information is provided.

Intervention Start Date

2026-05-11

Intervention End Date

2026-09-11

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The primary outcomes are:
1. Parent belief updating about the child’s recent mental-health state.
2. Post-treatment parental concern or perceived seriousness of the child’s mental-health situation.
3. Supportive parental behavioral intentions, including intentions to talk with the child, reduce academic pressure, seek help, and allocate time toward supporting the child’s emotional well-being.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Parent belief updating is defined as the difference between the parent’s post-treatment belief and baseline belief about the child’s recent mental-health state, with higher values indicating upward updating toward greater perceived distress.

Post-treatment concern is measured using a standardized index of parents’ perceived seriousness of the child’s mental-health situation and perceived need to rethink their response.

Supportive parental behavioral intentions are measured using a standardized index constructed from post-treatment intended responses. These include whether the parent intends to talk with the child about stress or emotions, reduce academic pressure or reassess pressure placed on the child, seek professional or other help if needed, demand additional mental-health information or guidance, and allocate more time to support-oriented activities intended to improve the child’s emotional well-being. Component outcomes will also be analyzed separately.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary outcomes include:
1. Accuracy of parental beliefs about the child’s mental-health state.
2. Second-order belief accuracy: parents’ predictions of how the child would report their own mental-health state.
3. Beliefs about parents’ own likelihood of underestimating the child’s distress.
4. Beliefs about long-run consequences of adolescent mental health for adult outcomes.
5. Academic-versus-mental-health priorities.
6. Comprehension of the information treatment.
7. Heterogeneous treatment effects by baseline underawareness, belief type, academic-priority orientation, parenting style, and baseline beliefs about consequences.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Belief accuracy is measured by comparing parent-reported or parent-predicted child mental-health measures with the child’s own self-report when linked child data are available. Baseline error is defined as child report minus parent baseline belief; positive values indicate parental underestimation. Accuracy-related outcomes include error reduction, absolute post-treatment error, signed second-order error, and absolute second-order error.

Parents’ beliefs about their own underestimation are measured using survey items asking whether parents think their judgment may understate the child’s problems relative to the child’s own report. Consequence beliefs are measured using items on whether adolescent mental-health problems affect later mental health, education, life satisfaction, and labor-market outcomes. Academic-versus-mental-health priorities are measured using survey items capturing whether parents prioritize grades and exam success relative to mental health and emotional well-being. Comprehension is measured using post-treatment checks of whether parents understood the information. Heterogeneity analyses will examine whether treatment effects differ by baseline underawareness, truly underaware versus strategically inattentive belief type, academic-priority index, child-reported low-responsive parenting style, and baseline consequence beliefs.

Experimental Design

The study uses randomized information experiments conducted with parents of middle- and high-school students. Parents complete an online survey in which they first report baseline beliefs about their child’s recent mental-health state. They are then randomly assigned to receive control information or one of several brief information treatments related to adolescent mental health. The treatments provide information about parent-child perception gaps, the long-run consequences of adolescent mental-health problems, and/or the importance of mental health relative to academic performance. Post-treatment outcomes are measured within the same survey and include belief updating, concern, priorities, and intended parental responses.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization is conducted by computer within the online survey platform after baseline belief elicitation. Assignment occurs automatically at the individual parent level. In the parent-only mechanism experiment, the computer assigns parents to one of five arms: control, perception-gap information, consequence information, combined information, or mental-health-priority information. In the paired-survey experiment, the computer assigns parents to treatment or control after baseline parent beliefs are recorded.

Randomization Unit

The unit of randomization is the individual parent respondent. Each participating parent is assigned independently to a treatment or control condition within the online survey.

Was the treatment clustered?