Parent education interventions: Results from a national study in Portugal

Abstract

Parenting education programmes are becoming widespread practices and are being recognized by the scientific community as promising interventions for preventing child maltreatment. However, a diversity of programme objectives and implementation conditions can be related to different outcomes in parental competencies and child adjustment. In this paper we present data concerning the effects of different parent education interventions developed in Portugal. Five hundred one participants participating in 56 interventions were evaluated using a pre- and post-test design. Analyses were designed to determine the participant and programme characteristics that were associated with intervention outcomes, as indicated by univariate and covariate test results and respective effect sizes. After controlling for pre-test results, significant and positive intervention effects were found for parental stress, effective parenting attitudes (i.e., empathic responding, use of punitive discipline, and endorsement of parental roles), perception of the informal social support network and child behavioural and emotional difficulties. These positive outcomes are associated with some parental characteristics (educational level and child protection referrals) as well as with a number of programme characteristics (e.g., length of programme, existence of a manual, transportation, specific training in the programme). Discussion is focused on the positive effects of interventions and the role of the identified moderating factors as well as their implications for the development of parent education programmes.

Keywords:

• Parent education
• Programme evaluation
• Programme efficacy
• Programme effectiveness

Notes

This study was developed within a collaborative protocol between the CNPCJR, the Instituto da Segurança Social (Institute of Social Security, Public Institute), the Direcção Geral da Segurança Social (Directorate-General for Health and Social Security), the Faculdade de Motricidade Humana da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (Faculty of Human Kinetics of the Technical University of Lisbon), the Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto), the Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra), the Instituto de Estudos da Criança da Universidade do Minho (Institute of Child Studies of the University of Minho) and the Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico do Porto (College of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto).