Practice Profile: Parenting Programs for Teenage Mothers and Their Children

Barlow and colleagues (2011) conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of parenting programs for teen mothers and their children on improving the psychosocial health of young mothers and the developmental health of their children. This review included studies from a previously published meta-analysis (Coren 2001). A new literature review was also conducted from 2008 to 2010. The literature search reviewed several electronic databases such as MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, the Social Science Citation Index, Sociological Abstracts, and ERIC. Bibliographies of systematic and nonsystematic review articles were also examined to identify relevant studies.

Eligible studies included those using randomized–controlled designs and quasi–experimental designs in which participants were allocated to an experimental or a control group, the latter being a waitlist group or no-treatment group. Eligible participants were parents aged 20 or younger and their infants/children. Studies evaluating parenting programs were eligible for inclusion if the programs a) used an individual or group-based format; b) focused on improving parenting attitudes, practices, skills/knowledge, or well-being, c) used a structured format; and d) were offered to teenage parents before and after they gave birth, or just after birth.

The literature search yielded a total of eight studies with 351 participants, with a range of 16 to 95 participants. All eight studies were randomized controlled trials. The studies compared the parenting program for teen mothers and their children with a control group who received no treatment (five studies) or who received treatment as usual (three studies). Two studies were conducted in Canada; the remaining studies were conducted in the United States. The programs were delivered in a community setting (four studies), in the participant’s home (two studies), or in both the community and outpatient setting (one study); one study did not specify the delivery location. Parenting programs were directed mainly at pregnant women or mothers, under 20 years old, and their children. The mean age of mothers was 17 years, with a range of 13 to 20 years. One study did not report the mean age of mothers. Three studies evaluated the effectiveness of standard group-based parenting programs delivered over 6 to 10 weeks. Another three studies evaluated the efficacy of briefer programs that consisted of watching videotaped interactions over a short period (e.g., one to two sessions) or a more extended period (e.g., 6 to 7 weeks), and that focused primarily on improving parent–infant interaction. No information was provided on the evaluated programs from the remaining two included studies.

Four studies were included in the meta-analyses assessing parental attitudes to child rearing in the parental role using the Adult–Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI) and parent interactions with children using a subscale of the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale (NCATS). The CrimeSolutions review of this meta-analysis concentrated on outcomes that included AAPI measures of appropriate developmental expectation of children (that is, the parents’ expectations of children do not exceed the developmental capabilities of children, [Family Development Resources, Inc., 2023]), lack of empathic awareness (i.e., children’s needs are not understood or valued by the parent, the parent lacks nurturing skills [Family Development Resources, Inc., 2023]), nonbelief in corporal punishment (i.e., the parent understands and utilizes alternatives to physical force [Family Development Resources, Inc., 2023]), lack of parent child role reversal (i.e., the parent uses children to meet self-need, children perceived as objects for adult/parent gratification [Family Development Resources, Inc., 2023]), and the NCATS Parents subscale on parent–child interactions 3 months following the program. The standardized mean difference (SMD) was calculated for each outcome by dividing the mean difference in postintervention scores between the intervention and control groups by the pooled standard deviation. Effects were analyzed using a fixed-effects model, and the weight given to each study represents the inverse of the variance, such that the more precise estimates (i.e., from larger studies with more events) have been given more weight. Where there was evidence of statistically significant heterogeneity the robustness of the results was tested using a random effects model.