Community mothers' programme: randomised controlled trial of non-professional intervention in parenting.

Abstract

Objective-To see whether non-professional volunteer community mothers could deliver a child development programme to disadvantaged first time mothers for children aged up to 1 year.Design-Randomised controlled trial. Setting-A regional health authority in Dublin. Subjects-262 first time mothers who were delivered during six months in 1989 and who lived in a deprived area of Dublin; 30 experienced mothers from the same community recruited as community mothers.Interventions-All the first time mothers received standard support from the public health nurse. In addition, those in the intervention group received the services of a community mother, who was scheduled to visit monthly during the first year ofthe child's life.Results-232 (89%) first time mothers completed the study-127 in the intervention group, 105 controls. At the end of the study children in the intervention group were more likely to have received all oftheir primary immunisations, to be read to, and to be read to daily, played more cognitive games; and were exposed to more nursery rhymes. They were less likely to begin cows' milkc before 26 weeks and to receive an inappropriate energy intake and inappropriate amounts of animal protein, non-animal protein, wholefoods, vegetables, fruit, and milk.Mothers in the intervention group also had a better diet than controls. At the end of the study they were less likely to be tired, feel miserable, and want to stay indoors; had more positive feelings; and were less likely to display negative feelings.Conclusion-Non-professionals can deliver a health promotion programme on child development effectively. Whether they can do so as effectively as professionals requires further study.

Outreach programmes for health improvement of Traveller Communities: a synthesis of evidence

“…207 Given the success of this first trial, this article described the effort to apply the model to Traveller mothers. Outreach workers were experienced settled community mothers who were given additional training to heighten their awareness of and sensitivity to the needs of the Traveller parents.…”

Parenting Education in Indonesia: Review and Recommendations to Strengthen Programs and Systems

“…• Improve parents' verbal responsiveness to children, provide more stimulating activities to children, increase parents' level of reading to children, strengthen children's language and literacy skills, increase children's problem-solving skills, improve school readiness, cognitive skills and academic achievement, and narrow achievement gaps between majority and minority group children (Black et al 1994;Brooks-Gunn and Markman 2005;Johnson, Howell, and Molloy 1993;Landry et al 2012;Myers and Hertenberg 1987;Reese, Sparks, and Leyva 2010;Turner, Nye, andSchwartz 2004/2005;Gardner et al 2003). …”

“…• Increase immunization rates, child nutrition levels, and child height and weight (Cooper et al 2002;Johnson, Howell, and Molloy 1993;Super, Herrera, and Mora 1990). …”

The feasibility of using a parenting programme for the prevention of unintentional home injuries in the under-fives: a cluster randomised controlled trial

“…Some authors reported results from the same study at different follow-up time points in separate papers and several authors reported results from the same study in more than one paper. Sixteen [70][71][72]74,[76][77][78]80,[82][83][84][85]87,89,90 (73%) included studies were RCTs, two 73,81 (9%) were non-RCTs, one 86 (5%) was a partially randomised study with two randomised intervention arms and one non-randomised control arm, two 75,88 (9%) were CBA studies and one 79 (5%) was a quasi-RCT. Four studies 73,75,81,88 used clustered allocation.…”