A hybrid digital parenting programme delivered within the Malaysian preschool system: protocol for a feasibility study of a small scale cluster randomised factorial trial

Background: Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4, and in particular target 4.2, to ensure that all children have access to quality early childhood development, care and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education, is far from being attained. COVID-19 further compromised progress by disrupting early education, reducing access to wellbeing resources, and increasing family violence. Evidence from low- and middle-income countries suggests in-person parenting interventions are effective at improving child learning and preventing violence. Scaling-up these programmes, however, is challenged because of resource constraints. Integrating digital and human-delivered intervention components is one potential solution to addressing these challenges. There is a need to understand the feasibility and the effectiveness of such interventions in low resource settings including Malaysia. Objectives: This study aims to determine the feasibility and the effectiveness of a digital parenting programme (Naungan Kasih) delivered with varying combinations of two components included to encourage engagement in Malaysia. The study is framed around the following objectives 1) to determine the recruitment, retention, and engagement rates in each intervention conditions; 2) to document implementation fidelity; 3) to explore programme acceptability among key stakeholders; 4) to estimate the costs of the intervention; and 5) to provide preliminary indications of the effectiveness of the different components. Methods: This ten week factorial cluster randomised trial compares ParentText, a chatbotled intervention that delivers parenting and violence prevention content to caregivers of preschool aged children, in combination with two engagement components 1) a WhatsApp support group, and 2) either one or two in-person sessions. The trial aims to recruit 160 primary and 160 secondary caregivers of children (aged between four and six years) from eight schools split equally across two states in Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur and Negeri Sembilan. Primary outcomes relate to the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention and its components, including recruitment, retention and engagement. Effectiveness outcomes include caregiver parenting practices, mental health and relationship quality, and child developmental and behavioural outcomes. The evaluation involves mixed methods research utilising quantitative surveys among caregivers, digitally tracked engagement data of caregivers’ usage of the digital intervention components, direct assessments of children, and focus group discussions with caregivers and key stakeholders of the preschool system. Results: Recruitment took place in December 2023. 208 parents were recruited at baseline: 151 primary caregivers, and 57 secondary caregivers. In January 2024, 168 parents enrolled in the programme. Results will be reported in the second half of 2024. Conclusions: This is the first factorial randomised trial to assess the feasibility of a hybrid human-digital playful parenting programme in Southeast Asia. The results of this study will inform a large-scale optimisation trial to establish the most effective, cost-effective, and scalable version of the intervention in Malaysia. Trial Registration: The trial was registered on the Open Science Framework on 5 December 2023 (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/F32KY)

A whole genome analyses of genetic variants in two Kelantan Malay individuals

The sequencing of two members of the Royal Kelantan Malay family genomes will provide insights on the Kelantan Malay whole genome sequences. The two Kelantan Malay genomes were analyzed for the SNP markers associated with thalassemia and Helicobacter pylori infection. Helicobacter pylori infection was reported to be low prevalence in the north-east as compared to the west coast of the Peninsular Malaysia and beta-thalassemia was known to be one of the most common inherited and genetic disorder in Malaysia.By combining SNP information from literatures, GWAS study and NCBI ClinVar, 18 unique SNPs were selected for further analysis. From these 18 SNPs, 10 SNPs came from previous study of Helicobacter pylori infection among Malay patients, 6 SNPs were from NCBI ClinVar and 2 SNPs from GWAS studies. The analysis reveals that both Royal Kelantan Malay genomes shared all the 10 SNPs identified by Maran (Single Nucleotide Polymorphims (SNPs) genotypic profiling of Malay patients with and without Helicobacter pylori infection in Kelantan, 2011) and one SNP from GWAS study. In addition, the analysis also reveals that both Royal Kelantan Malay genomes shared 3 SNP markers; HBG1 (rs1061234), HBB (rs1609812) and BCL11A (rs766432) where all three markers were associated with beta-thalassemia.Our findings suggest that the Royal Kelantan Malays carry the SNPs which are associated with protection to Helicobacter pylori infection. In addition they also carry SNPs which are associated with beta-thalassemia. These findings are in line with the findings by other researchers who conducted studies on thalassemia and Helicobacter pylori infection in the non-royal Malay population.Wan Khairunnisa Wan Juhari, Nur Aida Md Tamrin, Mohd Hanif Ridzuan Mat Daud, Hatin Wan Isa, Nurfazreen Mohd Nasir, Sathiya Maran, Nur Shafawati Abdul Rajab, Khairul Bariah Ahmad Amin Noordin, Nik Norliza Nik Hassan, Rick Tearle, Rozaimi Razali, Amir Feisal Merican and Bin Alwi Zilfali

“Before I was like a Tarzan. But now, I take a pause”: mixed methods feasibility study of the Naungan Kasih parenting program to prevent violence against children in Malaysia

Background: Despite impressive strides in health, social protection, and education, children continue to experience high rates of child maltreatment in Malaysia. This mixed-methods study assessed the feasibility of a five-session, social learning-based parenting program delivered by government staff in a community setting to reduce violence against children. Methods: Parents of children from birth to 17 years were recruited from two communities near Kuala Lumpur to participate in the government-run program called the Naungan Kasih Positive Parenting Program (“Protecting through Love” in Bahasa Melayu). Quantitative data from female caregivers (N = 74) and children ages 10–17 (N = 26) were collected along with qualitative interviews and focus groups with parents, children, and facilitators. The primary outcome was child maltreatment with secondary outcomes including neglect, positive parenting, acceptability of corporal punishment, harsh parenting, positive discipline, and child behavior problems. Multilevel Poisson regression and multilevel linear regression were conducted to compare baseline and post-test outcomes. Qualitative interviews and focus groups examined how participants experienced the program utilizing a thematic analysis approach. Results: Quantitative analyses found pre-post reductions in overall child maltreatment, physical abuse, emotional abuse, attitudes supporting corporal punishment, parent sense of inefficacy, and child behavior problems. There were no reported changes on positive and harsh parenting, parental mental health, and marital satisfaction, nor were there any other significant changes reported by children. Qualitative findings suggested that the program had tangible benefits for female caregivers involved in the program, with the benefits extending to their family members. Conclusions: This feasibility study is one of the few studies in Southeast Asia that examined the feasibility and initial program impact of a parenting program delivered by government staff to families with children across the developmental spectrum from birth to 17 years. Promising results suggest that the program may reduce child maltreatment across a range of child ages. Findings also indicate areas for program improvement prior to further delivery and testing, including additional training and content on sexual and reproductive health, parenting children with disabilities, and online child protection

General attitudes towards marriage scale: psychometric properties in Malaysian adolescents of divorced families

Attitudes towards marriage in adolescence may influence the relationship quality in later years. There exist many measures of attitudes towards marriage which were validated among adolescents from two-parent family in the Western context. There is a need to validate measure of attitudes towards marriage in different countries. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Malay version of general attitudes towards marriage scale in a sample of 480 adolescents from divorced families in Malaysia. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a two-factor structure of general attitudes towards marriage scale, which explained for 60% of the variance. Additionally, the two-factor structure of general attitudes towards marriage scale demonstrated good fit to data in the confirmatory factor analysis (non-normed fit index = .941, comparative fit index = .958, root mean square error of estimation = .087, and χ 2/df = 4.615). Overall, the general attitudes towards marriage scale exhibited good internal consistency (α = .901), which supports the reliability of the instrument. The significant relationships between general attitudes towards marriage scale and other constructs also provided evidences to the convergent validity (r = .761, p < .001 with intent to marry, r = −.170, p < .001 with overt inter-parental conflict, and r = .523, p < .001 with mother–adolescent relationship). Significant gender difference was found in the report of general attitudes towards marriage scale (t = −2.265, p < .05). Thus, the translated general attitudes towards marriage scale is a reliable, valid, and practical instrument to measure attitudes towards marriage among Malaysian adolescents in divorced family setting

Positive and Negative Interactions Between Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law: What About Son-in-law?

Mother-in-law (MIL) and daughter-in-law (DIL) relationship is frequently studied due to its turbulent nature. Conflict with mother-in-law also contributes to poorer marital satisfaction. However, few researchers have included son-in-law (SIL) in their studies and neglected how this relationship contributes to couples' marital satisfaction. This study included son-in-law and investigated the relationships between couples' positive and negative interactions with mother-in-law and their relationships with marital satisfaction. A total of 197 Malaysian Chinese dual-earners (110 males and 87 females) reported on the following scales: positive and negative interactions with mother-in-law, and marital satisfaction. Gender differences are compared between mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship and mother-in-law/son-in-law relationship. These variables were tested via four hypotheses, the relationship between positive interactions with mother-in-law and marital satisfaction, the relationship between negative interactions with mother-in-law and marital satisfaction, and gender differences in the associations tested. Gender differences were found in negative interactions with mothers-in-law and their associations with marital satisfaction. The results were discussed in regards to the importance of the inclusion of son-in-law in examining in-law relationships and marital satisfaction.&nbsp

Digital Image Processing Techniques for Object Detection From Complex Background Image

AbstractThis paper discuss about the method or techniques on how to detect the mango from a mango tree. The techniques using are such as colour processing which are use as primary filtering to eliminate the unrelated colour or object in the image. Besides that, shape detection are been used where it will use the edge detection, Circular Hough Transform (CHT). This technique will determine the candidates of mango and find the circular pattern with the given radius within an image by collecting the maximum voting. The program should automatically detect the desire object and count the total number of it

Is parental mediation negatively associated with problematic media use among children and adolescents?:a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Parents in contemporary society face the challenge of establishing guidelines for how to manage their children’s and adolescent’s media use. Parental mediation, or the parenting strategies for regulating children’s media use, is frequently mentioned in discussions of problematic media use. However, previous research has provided inconsistent findings on the relationship between parental mediation and problematic media use. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the correlation between parental mediation (restrictive-, active-, and co-using mediation) and problematic media use (internet gaming disorder, social media disorder, and general problematic media use) among children and adolescents. Systematic literature searches were conducted in three online databases: Web of Science; Scopus; and EBSCO (CINAHL). PRISMA guidelines on eligibility criteria were observed. This review included a total of 41 studies which involved 47,264 children/adolescents (between 5 and 22 years of age) and 77,494 parents/carers. The initial results revealed that active mediation and co-using mediation are significantly correlated with problematic media use, while a nonsignificant relationship was found between restrictive mediation and problematic media use. Additional subgroup analyses revealed more complex relationships between parental mediation and problematic media use. This study highlighted certain methodological considerations that should be included in future studies to provide reliable evidence for the link between parental mediation and problematic media use

Diagnostic and systematic significance of petiole anatomy in the identification of Hopea species (Dipterocarpaceae)

A comprehensive study of the petiole anatomy of 33 species of the genus Hopea Roxb., belonging to the family Dipterocarpaceae, was carried out to examine variations in the petiole anatomy that might be useful in the identification and classification of the various species. The variations observed included the petiole outline, vascular bundle arrangement, trichome types, number of resin canals and presence of cell inclusions. Findings have shown that petiole anatomical characteristics are of taxonomic value for this genus and are valuable for species identification and classification. A combination of different petiole outlines and types of vascular bundle arrangement enable the division of this genus into five distinguishable groups. Variations in trichome types, distribution of sclerenchyma and resin canals provide useful diagnostic characters. In general, the petiole characteristics observed in the present study did show, to some extent, relationships in the context of existing phylogenies, but the findings cannot be used for the identification of Hopea species and more anatomical characteristics are needed for this purpose