This systematic review sought to identify observational measures of parent–child interactions commonly implemented in parenting program research, and to assess the level of psychometric evidence available for their use with this age group. Two separate searches of the same databases were conducted; firstly, to identify eligible instruments, and secondly to identify studies reporting on the psychometric properties of the identified measures. Five commercial platforms hosting 19 electronic databases were searched from their inception to conducted search dates. Fourteen measures were identified from Search 1; a systematic search of randomized controlled trial evaluations of parenting programs. For Search 2, inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied to 1327 retrieved papers that described the development and/or validation of the 14 measures identified in Search 1. Seventeen articles met the inclusion criteria, resulting in five observational measures for the final review. Data were extracted and synthesized using the COSMIN rating system to describe the methodological quality of each article alongside the overall quality rating of the psychometric property reported for each measure using the Terwee checklist. Measure reliability was categorized into four domains (internal consistency, test-re-test, inter-rater, and intra-rater). Measure validity was categorized into four domains (content, structural, convergent/divergent, and discriminant). Results indicated that the majority of psychometric evidence related to children aged from birth the three with internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and structural validity the most commonly reported properties, although this evidence was often weak. The findings suggest further validation of the included measures is required to establish acceptability for the whole target age group.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1007/s10567-019-00275-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Parenting programs are effective in the early intervention and treatment of children’s social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. However, inconsistency in the use of outcome measures limits the comparability of programs and creates challenges for practitioners seeking to monitor progress of families in their care. A systematic review was conducted to identify measures, appraise their psychometric properties and ease of implementation, with the overall objective of recommending a small battery of measures for use by researchers and practitioners. This article provides an overview of the most commonly used measures in experimental evaluations of parenting programs delivered to parents of children up to, and including, the age of 5 years (including antenatal programs). An in-depth appraisal of the psychometric properties and ease of implementation of parent outcome measures is also presented (findings in relation to child and dyadic outcome measures are presented elsewhere). Following a systematic search, 64 measures were identified as being used in three or more of 279 included evaluation studies. Data on the psychometric properties of 18 parent outcome measures were synthesised from 87 development and validation studies. Whilst it was not possible to identify a definitive battery of recommended measures, we are able to recommend specific measures that could be prioritised in further research and development and hold promise for those seeking to monitor the outcomes of parents and children in receipt of parenting programs.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1007/s10567-019-00276-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
We would like to acknowledge the Bowland Trust for providing seed funding to support the employment of a student intern who supported the research team in the coding of the group videos for this paper. We thank Annie Clarke for her coding work, Professors Judy Hutchings and David Daley for their qualitative feedback on the tool, the group facilitators, and parents for their participation.
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