Peer-reviewed article
Parental attendance in two early-childhood training programmes to improve nurturing care: A randomized controlled trial
Rafaela Costa Martins, Adriana Kramer Fiala Machado, Yulia Shenderovich, Tâmara Biolo Soares, Suélen Henriques da Cruz et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined parent attendance in two group-based training programmes in Brazil: ACT (to reduce harsh parenting) and Dialogic Book-Sharing (to promote parental sensitivity). About 64% of mothers completed ACT and 77% completed DBS. While mothers were satisfied with both programmes, practical difficulties during attendance were more important than baseline characteristics in predicting who completed the courses.
Key points
- 64.2% of mothers (79/123) completed the ACT programme and 76.6% (95/124) completed DBS
- Maternal age and distance from home to intervention site significantly predicted ACT completion
- No baseline characteristics significantly predicted DBS attendance
- Mothers were very positive about both programmes despite reporting practical difficulties in attending
- Practical difficulties during training were more important for attendance than baseline participant characteristics
Limitations
The study focuses on attendance and completion rates rather than child outcomes or the effectiveness of the interventions themselves. It does not explain what specific practical difficulties mothers experienced or how these could be addressed.
Abstract
Parent training programmes have significant potential to improve the quality of children's early environments and thereby their development and life-course outcomes. The aim of this study was to identify and explain the extent to which parents engaged in two group-based training programmes, offered to high-risk families enrolled in a randomized controlled trial study called PIÁ in Southern Brazil. The programmes were: (1) ACT: Raising Safe Kids, a 9-week programme aiming to reduce harsh parenting and maltreatment and improve positive parenting practices; (2) Dialogic book-sharing (DBS), an 8-week programme aiming to promote parental sensitivity and improve child cognitive development and social understanding. Of the 123 mothers randomly allocated to the ACT programme, 64.2% (n = 79) completed the course, and of 124 mothers allocated to DBS, 76.6% (n = 95) completed the course. After the interventions, mothers were very positive about the experience of both programmes but highlighted practical difficulties in attending. In adjusted regression analyses, only two variables significantly predicted ACT course completion (maternal age and distance between the intervention site and household); no significant predictor was found for DBS attendance. We conclude that although high completion rates are possible, there are important challenges to engaging parents of young children in training programmes, and practical difficulties occurring during training courses may be more important for attendance than baseline participant characteristics.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Two group-based parent training programmes: ACT Raising Safe Kids (9 weeks) to reduce harsh parenting and improve positive practices, and Dialogic Book-Sharing (8 weeks) to promote parental sensitivity and child cognitive development
- Population
- High-risk families in Southern Brazil; 123 mothers allocated to ACT and 124 mothers allocated to DBS
Key finding
ACT completion rate: 64.2% (79/123 mothers)