A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effectiveness and Mechanisms of Change in a School-Based Intervention Combining Universal and Indicated Prevention for Preschoolers’ Behavior Problems

ABSTRACT

The Social-Emotional Prevention Program (SEP) is a multi-focused intervention combining universal and indicated intervention strategies delivered face-to-face and through the use of technology. The study’s objectives were to assess comparatively SEP effectiveness as a function of preschoolers’ baseline risk of externalizing problems and to evaluate its hypothesized mechanisms of action. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted with five schools assigned to either the intervention or to a comparison condition (wait-list control). Structural equation models (SEM) and complier average causal effects (CACE) were conducted to evaluate program effectiveness and mechanisms of change. Research Findings: SEP participation was associated with improved social-emotional competence irrespective of baseline risk and at-risk preschoolers were more likely to exhibit reductions in externalizing problems. However, perceptions about which risk group benefited more varied as a function of rater. Patterns for SEP mechanisms of action suggest that these were similar across risk status with both child emotion regulation and parental emotion socialization practices emerging as paths to improved social-emotional competencies. Practice and Policy: The present findings add to the extant evidence suggesting that multi-focused programs combining universal and indicated prevention strategies could be successfully delivered in schools to promote social-emotional learning.

Disclosure Statement

The work described was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and informed consent was obtained for participation.

The work described has not been published before, is not under consideration for publication and all coauthors approved the final form of the submitted manuscript.

There is no actual or perceived conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research.

Open Science Data

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VDMA7.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2023.2298642

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS - UEFISCDI, project number [PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-0226], within PNCDI III.