The effects of two early parenting interventions on child aggression and risk for violence in Brazil (The PIÁ Trial): protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Abstract

Background Children in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at high risk for exposure to violence and later violent behaviour. The World Health Organization has declared an urgent need for the evaluation and implementation of low-cost parenting interventions in LMICs to prevent violence. Two areas of significant early risk are harsh parenting and poor child cognitive and socio-emotional development. Parenting interventions suitable for LMIC contexts have been developed targeting these risk factors and have been shown to have promising effects. However, their impact on child aggression, a key precursor of violence, has yet to be determined. The Pelotas Trial of Parenting Interventions for Aggression (PIÁ) has been designed to address this issue. Methods We are conducting a randomised controlled trial to evaluate two early parenting interventions for mothers of children aged between 30 and 42 months in a Brazilian city. The first of these, dialogic book-sharing (DBS), aims to promote child cognitive and socio-emotional development; and the second, the ACT Raising Safe Kids Program (ACT), is designed to reduce harsh parenting. These interventions are being compared with a control group receiving neither intervention. Three hundred and sixty-nine families in a birth cohort are being randomly allocated to one of the three groups (DBS, ACT, Control). Facilitators deliver the interventions to groups of five to 10 mothers at weekly sessions for 8 weeks in DBS and 9 weeks in ACT. Independent assessments of parenting and child development are being made before the interventions, shortly afterwards, and at follow-up 6 months later. The primary outcome is child aggression, and the two main secondary outcomes are: (1) child cognitive and socio-emotional development and (2) harsh parenting. Longer-term outcomes will be investigated as the birth cohort is followed into late childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Discussion The Pelotas Trial of Parenting Interventions for Aggression (PIÁ) aims to evaluate the impact of two early parenting interventions on child aggression and several other key risk factors for the development of violence, including aspects of parenting and child cognition and socio-emotional functioning. The study is being carried out in a LMIC context where violence constitutes a major social and health burden. Since the two interventions are brief and, with modest levels of training, readily deliverable in LMIC settings, a demonstration that they benefit parenting and reduce risk factors for violence would be of major significance. Trial registration Brazilian Ministry of Health Register of Clinical Trials, ID: RBR-2kwfsk. Registered on 6 June 2018. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13063-019-3356-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Impacto de um programa de competências parentais no stress e competências de atenção plena

“…Acrescem melhorias ao nível do stress parental nos pais que se submeteram ao Programa ACT-RSK no nosso estudo. Um trabalho recente, (28) mas ainda em desenvolvimento, com a implementação do Programa em mães de crianças entre 30 e 42 meses de idade na cidade brasileira de Pelotas, com recurso a um estudo randomizado controlado, com pré (1-3 meses) e pós teste (4-6 meses) e um follow-up (9-13 meses), pretende avaliar o impacto do programa na redução de práticas educativas parentais severas e de fatores de risco para a violência, onde se inclui o stress parental. Aguardamos resultados, porque os autores ainda só publicaram a primeira versão do protocolo do estudo.…”

Programa de parentalidade: Da evidência científica para a implementação em escala

“…Outro estudo randomizado controlado encontra-se em andamento no Sul do Brasil com 369 famílias em uma coorte de nascimento alocada aleatoriamente em um dos três grupos, a saber: i) grupo de intervenção com o Programa ACT; ii) grupo de intervenção com o Programa Conte Comigo; iii) e Grupo Controle (Murray et al, 2019). Diferente do outro estudo randomizado controlado em que os facilitadores eram pesquisadores , nesse estudo de Pelotas os facilitadores do Programa ACT eram profissionais vinculados à prefeitura, principalmente da área da educação.…”

Exploring the Availability and Potential of International Data for Criminological Study

“…Single-country data refer simply to data collected within a particular country that is not necessarily cross-nationally comparable. The most common and relevant for criminologists are national or local crime and justice statistics, social and health surveys (e.g., South Africa Social Attitudes Survey, Japan General Social Surveys, the Dutch Social Cohesion and Well-being Survey), crime and victimization surveys (e.g., Crime Survey for England and Wales, the Dutch SafetyMonitor, the Australian Multipurpose Household Survey, the Swedish Crime Survey), longitudinal studies (e.g., the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, Farrington et al, 2016;the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, Poulton et al, 2016; the Zurich Project on Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood, Eisner & Ribeaud, 2007), randomized controlled trials (e.g., Culver et al, 2016;Henstock & Ariel, 2017;Murray, Santos, et al, 2019;Murray, Shenderovich, et al, 2019), as well as the wide range of one-off data collections that address specific research questions or topics.…”

“…There are a number of longitudinal studies outside the United States that have contributed substantially to criminological theory and knowledge (Nguyen & Loughran, 2014). However, the vast majority of longitudinal cohort studies are conducted in high-income, western societies, whereas there is a substantial need for more data and theory testing in lowand middle-income countries [LMICs] (see Murray, Santos, et al, 2019;Murray, Shenderovich, et al, 2019;Sanchez de Ribera et al, 2019). There are notable developments in using existing longitudinal cohort data or collecting new data to evaluate a variety of criminological topics.…”

“…This growth in international longitudinal data suggests there are active and ongoing efforts by criminologists to advance our global knowledge on crime and justice. Nevertheless, previous reviews of research from LMICs call for further evaluation of criminological knowledge in LMICs using longitudinal and experimental designs (Bourey et al, 2015;Higginson et al, 2015;Murray, Santos, et al, 2019;Murray, Shenderovich, et al, 2019;Sivaraman et al, 2019).…”