Supporting parenting during early childhood with the family check-up online: A randomized clinical trial.

Online parenting interventions can reduce barriers to receiving support for parenting during early childhood. As parents with mental health challenges are at greater risk of experiencing such barriers, increasing access to novel supports for child behavior and parenting is critically important for promoting health equity for parents and their young children. The present study tested the effects of an online parenting intervention, the Family Check-Up Online (FCU-O), on parenting skills, self-efficacy, and parent stress at a 12-month follow-up and whether improvements to parenting self-efficacy (PSE) explained intervention effects on parenting skills. The FCU-O is a mobile web-based parenting support app that includes telehealth coaching support. Participants were 356 parents of toddler to preschool-age children who endorsed either depressive symptoms or current or past substance misuse at baseline. Parents who were predominantly White and non-Hispanic (72%) and female (93%) were randomized to the FCU-O or a waitlist control. The FCU-O was associated with significant improvements to PSE and parenting skills, including positive behavior support, limit setting, and proactive parenting. Additionally, improvements to PSE partially mediated direct effects of the FCU-O on positive behavior support, limit setting, proactive parenting, and parent stress. Our findings have implications for the utility of online parenting interventions for underserved families and support the importance of promoting PSE to maximize intervention benefits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).