Telehealth-delivered parent-mediated early intervention targeting social communication in autism in Saudi Arabia: A feasibility study. (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Telehealth is a promising service delivery model to solve inequity in accessing autism services, but the evidence is limited to Western countries. The feasibility of coaching parents via telehealth in other countries where cultural differences might impact service delivery models needs investigation. OBJECTIVE This feasibility study aimed to investigate the implementation, usability, and acceptability of using telehealth in coaching caregivers of autistic preschoolers in the Saudi context. METHODS Eleven parent-child dyads participated from two community-based settings in Riyadh. Children were males with autism diagnoses aged 2:3 to 5:6 years. Parents were all female aged (M= 37). Parents completed eight 60-min intervention sessions delivered via videoconferencing. Intervention fidelity was measured from weekly 5-min video-recorded parent-child interaction. The telehealth usability questionnaire TUQ was completed by the participants post-intervention. RESULTS The intervention was successfully implemented using videoconferencing as the time lost due to technical issues was only 1.8% of the total coaching time. Participants achieved a median fidelity of 86% (IQR=8.5%). TUQ results revealed high levels of acceptability, usability, and overall satisfaction post-intervention. However, the actual duration of the intervention varied widely between participants ranging from 9 to 27 weeks. CONCLUSIONS Findings support the feasibility of coaching parents of autistic children via telehealth in the Saudi context. This provides the basis for further work towards a pilot randomized controlled trial. CLINICALTRIAL ISRCTN registry ISRCTN43539371; https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN43539371 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT RR2-https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN43539371