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A Toddler Parenting Intervention in Primary Care for Caregivers With Depression Symptoms

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Abstract

Caregiver depression impacts parenting behaviors and has deleterious effects on child behavior. Evidence-based interventions to address parenting have not been adapted for use with depressed caregivers in pediatric primary care settings. Our study examined the feasibility and explored outcomes of an evidence-based parenting program implemented in primary care and adapted for caregivers with depressive symptoms caring for toddlers. We conducted a randomized controlled trial with a wait-list control. Participants were caregivers who screened positive for depressive symptoms in pediatric settings with a toddler. Our study was implemented from July 2011 to June 2012. We adapted the Incredible Years Parents, Babies and Toddlers program with the addition of depression psychoeducation (12 weekly sessions), and assessed caregivers at baseline and immediately post-intervention. We assessed participation rates, depressive symptoms, parenting discipline practices, social support, and parenting stress. Our results revealed that 32 caregivers participating in the intervention group had significantly greater improvement in self-reported parenting discipline practices compared to the 29 wait-list control group caregivers. We found no differences between groups in depressive symptoms, social support, or parenting stress. Our study demonstrated that the average attendance was poor (mean attendance = 3.7 sessions). We adapted an evidence-based parenting intervention for caregivers with depressive symptoms and toddlers in primary care; however, participation was challenging. Alternative intervention strategies are needed to reach and retain low-income caregivers with depression symptoms as they face multiple barriers to participation in groups within center-based services.

Trial Registration Clinical Trials.gov identifier NCT01464619.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by Grant R40MC11627 from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau and a CATCH grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics. We wish to thank the staff and clinicians at all the participating practices affiliated with The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and our advisory board (Susan Robbins, Gayle Edelsohn, Roxy Wiloszyn, Donna Bibbs, Suzanne O’Connor, and Katja Pigur). We would also like to thank Shadiya Moss for her research assistance on this manuscript.

Funding

This study was funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (R40MC11627) and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3440 Market Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Rhonda C. Boyd

  2. Policylab, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Rhonda C. Boyd, Marsha Gerdes, Brooke Rothman, Susan L. Dougherty, Russell Localio & James P. Guevara

  3. Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Russell Localio & James P. Guevara

Authors
  1. Rhonda C. Boyd
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  2. Marsha Gerdes
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  3. Brooke Rothman
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  4. Susan L. Dougherty
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  5. Russell Localio
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  6. James P. Guevara
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Correspondence to Rhonda C. Boyd.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Boyd, R.C., Gerdes, M., Rothman, B. et al. A Toddler Parenting Intervention in Primary Care for Caregivers With Depression Symptoms. J Primary Prevent 38, 465–480 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-017-0481-8

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