Parental psychosocial health can have a significant effect on the parent-child relationship, with consequences for the later psychological health of the child. Some parenting programmes aim to improve aspects of parental wellbeing and this review specifically looked at whether group-based parenting programmes are effective in improving any aspects of parental psychosocial health (for example, anxiety, depression, guilt, confidence).
The findings of this Campbell Systematic Review support the use of parenting programmes to improve the short-term psychosocial wellbeing of parents. The findings suggest that further input may be needed to support parents to maintain these benefits.
This review included 48 studies that covered three types of programme: behavioural, cognitive-behavioural and multimodal. Overall, the results suggested improvements in the short-term for parental depression, anxiety, stress, anger, guilt, confidence and satisfaction with the partner relationship.
More research is needed that explicitly addresses the benefits for fathers, and that examines the comparative effectiveness of different types of programme along with the mechanisms by which such programmes bring about improvements in parental psychosocial functioning.
The review team was led by Jane Barlow, Professor of Public Health in the Early Years at the University of Warwick Medical School and Director of the Warwick Infant and Family Wellbeing Unit.