Empowering Parents: The Impact of a Parenting Practice-Based Care Module on Preventing Internet Gaming Disorder in Elementary School Children.

Background: The prevalence of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) among elementary school children has raised concerns about its potential negative impact on academic performance, social interactions, and overall mental well-being. In response, this research assessed the impact of the parenting Practice-Based Care Module (PPCM) as an effective preventive strategy to empower parents and promote balanced gaming behavior in their children.

Materials and methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted with 170 parents from Gresik Regency, Indonesia, in December 2022 using a non-randomized control group pretest-posttest design. The intervention group received psychoeducation and training on the PPCM, while the control group received training after data collection using a valid, reliable questionnaire.

Results: The results are showed that the PPCM significantly improved parents' ability to prevent IGD in their children. Eight parental factors significantly influenced endogenous variables, including parental responsiveness, mediation mechanism, parenting style, and parents' ability to prevent IGD, with R2 values in the "good" range (0.50 to 0.75), explaining 60.60% of the variation. The model's strong predictive relevance (Q2 values > 0) supported its effectiveness. Hypothesis testing revealed significant effects, such as parental responsiveness on the mediation mechanism (t-statistic: 3.92) and mediation mechanism on parenting psychoeducation (t-statistic: 2.60). Parenting style also positively impacted parents' ability to prevent IGD (t-statistic: 4.82). Notably, child factors had the most significant influence on parental responsiveness (path coefficient: 0.23).

Conclusions: This research underscores parents' pivotal role in addressing IGD in elementary school children. The PPCM significantly enhances IGD prevention through key parental factors. Collaboration is essential for fostering a healthy digital environment.