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Parenting interventions for incarcerated parents to improve parenting knowledge and skills, parent well-being, and quality of the parent–child relationship: A systematic review and meta-analysis

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Abstract

Objectives

To systematically review and quantitatively synthesize the evidence for the impact of parenting interventions for incarcerated parents on parenting knowledge and skills, parent well-being, and quality of the parent–child relationship.

Methods

A systematic search of 19 published and unpublished literature sources was conducted between June and July 2015 (with no date, language, document type, or geographical restrictions). Studies were included if they: (a) utilized a sample of parents who completed a parenting intervention in an incarceration setting; (b) measured parenting knowledge and skills, parent well-being, or quality of the parent–child relationship as outcome measures; and (c) employed a randomized controlled trial or quasi-experimental design with no treatment, waitlist control, or treatment-as-usual as the comparison condition. Two review authors independently determined study eligibility and extracted data from eligible studies, which included rating the risk of bias for each eligible study. Meta-analysis was used to synthesize standardized effect sizes, and subgroup analyses were used to examine the moderating effect of parent gender, level of child involvement, and research design.

Results

Twenty-two studies were eligible for inclusion in the review; however, only 16 studies (N = 2292) reported sufficient data for inclusion in the meta-analyses. Parenting interventions were more effective at post-intervention for improving parenting knowledge and skills than no treatment, waitlist control, or treatment-as-usual [standardized mean difference (SMD) = 0.68, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28, 1.06] and quality of the parent–child relationship (SMD = 0.27, 95% CI 0.02, 0.51), but not for improving parent well-being (SMD = 0.14, 95% CI −0.03, 0.30). There was significant heterogeneity across effect sizes for both parenting knowledge and skills and quality of the parent–child relationship outcome domains. There were no statistically significant differences between subgroups, and the effectiveness of parenting interventions was not maintained at follow-up time-points.

Conclusions

Existing evidence suggests small to moderate effectiveness for parenting interventions during incarceration at close to intervention completion. Further methodologically robust research is required to more confidently establish the effectiveness of parenting programs both in the short-term and in the post-release period.

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Notes

  1. The following changes were made to the protocol prior to completion of the review: no coding or synthesis of child outcomes (due to resource constraints) and addition of possible sources of heterogeneity to be used in subgroup analyses.

  2. This criterion did not require that the document included “useable” data for the calculation of an effect size. This criterion required that the document reported a quantitative bivariate or multivariate comparison. Documents were included if data could be reported in raw form (in-text, tables, or figures) and/or if symbols representing statistical analyses were present (e.g., p-values, t, F, r, β, RR, OR, CIs).

  3. \( {SE}_{adj}=\sqrt{DE}\times {SE}_{SMD} \), where DE = 1 + (m − 1) × ICC; m = average cluster size and ICC = intra-class correlation coefficient.

  4. Duplicate records were identified using the EndNote “Find Duplicates” function prior to import into SysReview. All identified duplicates, whether identified prior to importing in EndNote or during screening, were manually inspected and removed/excluded if the following fields matched another record in the library: author(s), document title, year of publication, and secondary title (including volume and page numbers, where relevant).

  5. As described by the United States Department of Corrections, residential work-release centers allow inmates in the final months of their imprisonment to participate in paid work in the community during the day and return to the correctional facility at the end of the workday. Lebaron’s description of the intervention setting is consistent with this definition. As such, this study setting was considered to be an eligible incarceration setting.

  6. This study is synthesized separately from the other studies in the meta-analyses. The other studies with treatment-as-usual comparison groups specified that participants had the option to engage in alternative treatments (including parenting programs), but did not report whether participants actually engaged in these other interventions. In comparison, this study allocated and exposed participants to the existing parenting program and, so, was considered sufficiently different from the other studies to warrant separation from the meta-analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

    Eleanor Armstrong, Elizabeth Eggins, Natasha Reid & Sharon Dawe

  2. Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Eleanor Armstrong, Elizabeth Eggins, Natasha Reid & Sharon Dawe

  3. School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Paul Harnett

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  1. Eleanor Armstrong
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  2. Elizabeth Eggins
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  3. Natasha Reid
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  4. Paul Harnett
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  5. Sharon Dawe
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Correspondence to Sharon Dawe.

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Armstrong, E., Eggins, E., Reid, N. et al. Parenting interventions for incarcerated parents to improve parenting knowledge and skills, parent well-being, and quality of the parent–child relationship: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Exp Criminol 14, 279–317 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-017-9290-6

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