APOLO-Teens is a Facebook-based psychological intervention aiming to optimize hospital treatment for adolescents with overweight/obesity. The present qualitative study aims to explore (1) how adolescents experienced participation in APOLO-Teens and (2) how parents perceived adolescents' participation. Sixteen adolescent-parent dyads were interviewed by telephone using semistructured guides. An inductive approach of thematic analysis was used to analyze data by two independent codifiers. The consensus was used to resolve differences in coding/themes, and two independent auditors reviewed the codes and the themes proposed. We identified four themes from adolescents' interviews, namely, expectations, perception of outcomes, participation in the intervention, and sharing of acquired knowledge. From parents' interviews, we identified five themes: expectations for son/daughter participation, perception of adolescents' outcomes, son/daughter participation, parental role, and use of social networks in intervention programs for adolescents. Both elements of the dyad indicated that adolescents' participation in APOLO-Teens contributed to favorable outcomes, further highlighting the use of online interventions to complement the hospital treatment of adolescents with overweight/obesity. Future studies should address the viewpoints of adolescents and parents in the design of Facebook-based interventions, namely, to implement tailored, shorter, less time-demanding interventions that favor engagement between participants and parental involvement.
Keywords: adolescents; online interventions; overweight/obesity; parents; qualitative study.
© 2021 The International Association of Applied Psychology.