Published December 27, 2021 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Prevention of child mental health problems through parenting interventions in Southeastern Europe (RISE): study protocol for a multi-site randomised controlled trial

  • 1. Department of Psychology, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  • 2. Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
  • 3. Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
  • 4. Department of Psychology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 5. Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  • 6. School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
  • 7. School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, UK
  • 8. Institute for Marriage, Family and Systemic Practice – ALTERNATIVA, Skopje, North Macedonia
  • 9. Health for Youth Association, Chișinău, Republic of Moldova
  • 10. Institute for Psychology, University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria

Description

Background: Childhood adversities, such as poor parental practices, exposure to violence, and risk behaviours strongly impact children’s future mental and behavioural problems. Adversities affect families living in disadvantaged environments and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to a greater extent than in high-income countries. Parenting programmes are an effective way to alleviate them, although their outreach and scalability is still limited in LMICs.

Methods/design: A multi-site randomised controlled trial will be conducted in North Macedonia, Republic of Moldova and Romania to test the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of an optimised version of the promising Parenting for Lifelong Health Programme for Young Children (PLH-YC, 5 sessions), against a standard lecture on parenting issues (control group, 1 session). At least 864 participants who report having children between 2 and 9 years old who display elevated levels of behavioural difficulties will be randomised on a 1:1 basis to the intervention and control groups. The primary outcome will consist of parent report of child oppositional aggressive behaviour. Post-test (four months) and follow-up (12 months) assessments will provide information on short- and longer-term effects of PLH-YC compared to the parenting lecture in the control group.

Discussion: This randomised trial will test the efficacy of PLH-YC in alleviating child behavioural problems and assess the cost-effectiveness, transportability across three different cultural contexts, and potential for scalability of the programme.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov., Registration number: NCT04721730 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04721730). Registered 13.01.2021

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Taut et al. 2021 TRIALS.pdf

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Additional details

Funding

European Commission
RISE - Prevention of child mental health problems in Southeastern Europe - Adapt, Optimize, Test, and Extend Parenting for Lifelong Health 779318