Abstract
The pediatric primary care setting offers a promising platform for delivering positive parenting interventions as a strategy to prevent childhood adversity and behavioral health issues. This pilot project assessed parents’ acceptability and perspectives of Parent ConnextTM, a positive parenting and prevention program that includes screening for parenting and family psychosocial concerns by pediatricians and individualized parent coaching for parents by co-located Parenting Specialists. Eleven pediatric practices implemented Parent ConnextTM over a three year period, and 1,301 families participated in parent coaching. Parents were invited to complete surveys on parenting and psychosocial factors at sessions 1, 3, and 3 months follow-up and were emailed a satisfaction survey after their last session and invited to participate in a phone interview. A subsample of 280 biological mothers who completed surveys at multiple time points showed improved parenting satisfaction, parenting efficacy, and parent-child interaction and reduced psychosocial concerns over time. The majority (≥97%) of the 387 parents who completed the satisfaction survey reported satisfaction with the accessibility, convenience, and quality of the parent coaching service. Nearly all 27 parents interviewed (96%) reported being highly likely to recommend the service to a friend or parent, and most (84%) felt their needs had been met. Parents described the key program attributes to include normalization of their experiences, non-judgmental support, easy-to-implement tailored strategies, and empowerment in parenting. Overall, parents found Parent ConnextTM to be a worthwhile addition to their pediatric primary care. Alternative payment models are needed to support the sustainability of integrated programs like Parent ConnextTM.
Highlights
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Parenting Specialists provided parent coaching to parents at 11 pediatric practices.
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Parenting efficacy, parenting satisfaction, and parent-child interaction improved in participating mothers.
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97% of parents were satisfied with the quality and accessibility of parent coaching.
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Parents most appreciated the normalizing, non-judgmental support and empowerment.
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Parents found the concrete, tailored parenting strategies received to be beneficial.
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This work was supported by bi3, the grant-making initiative of Bethesda Inc.
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E.A.E.: conceptualization, methodology, project administration, writing—original draft, funding acquisition. L.M.V.: methodology, investigation, project administration, formal analysis, writing—original draft, supervision. H.L.V.: investigation, formal analysis, writing—original draft. E.P.: investigation, formal analysis, writing—original draft. A.T.F.: methodology, formal analysis, writing—review and editing. J.H.: conceptualization, supervision, funding acquisition, writing—review & editing. R.A.S.: conceptualization, supervision, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing.
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The Institutional Review Board of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center determined that this project did not meet regulatory criteria for research involving human subjects and that no ethical approval was required. The project was still conducted in accordance with the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.
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Eismann, E.A., Vaughn, L.M., Vilvens, H.L. et al. Parent Perspectives on Co-located Parent Coaching Services within Pediatric Primary Care. J Child Fam Stud 30, 1965–1978 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02018-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02018-x