This study aims to understand if a parenting program that helps couples learn to parent as a team and maintain a healthy lifestyle, such as maintaining safer levels of alcohol use, promotes parent and child health and well-being. Programs will be delivered prenatally and postnatally and will include both group classes and individualized sessions. A comprehensive assessment is administered during pregnancy and then at 6 and 12 months of child age. It is hypothesized that targeting intervention during the naturally motivating transition to parenthood may not only provide opportunities for long lasting behavioral change for parents, but also initiate a cascade of protective processes that ultimately reduce risk for negative emotional and behavioral outcomes for children.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
DOUBLE
Enrollment
368
Healthy Foundations combines elements of a community-based parent education program with additional information about infant and child development, good parenting practices, parent health behavior, and couple support.
A modified version of Family Foundations, an evidence-based preventive intervention for couples during the transition to parenthood, will be implemented to address several aspects of parent and family adjustment, including parent health behavior, particularly alcohol use, and couple relationship dynamics, to promote a healthy parenting environment.
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York, United States
Rochester Institute of Technology
Henrietta, New York, United States
Couple Relationship/Co-parenting
Couple relationship will be evaluated through the Co-parenting Relationship Scale. For overall coparenting quality, average responses range from 0 (not true of us/never) to 6 (very true of us/very often). Lower scores indicate worse outcomes.
Time frame: 6 months of child age
Parent Adjustment
Parent adjustment will be assessed with self-report on mental health screenings. The Brief Symptom Inventory is a widely used mental health screening measure. Average responses to the listed symptoms range from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely) based on how distressing symptoms have been. Higher scores indicate greater intensity of symptoms.
Time frame: 6 months of child age
Parent Alcohol Use
Quantity-frequency of alcohol use (Quantity Frequency Index) and frequency of binge drinking (4 or 5 or more on a single occasion) based on the NIAAA standard drink will be assessed. Higher scores indicate greater quantity and frequency of alcohol use and binge drinking, with moderate drinking being defined as up to 1 standard drink per day for women and up to 2 standard drinks per day for men.
Time frame: 6 months of child age
Parent-infant Interactions
Parent-child relations will be measured through the coding of play interaction sessions. Parental warmth, sensitivity, and harshness will be coded during parent-infant interactions. Parents will be asked to spend some time with their infants as they normally would at 6 months. At 12 months, parents will be asked to spend some time with infants as they normally would for the first 5 minutes, and given a series of problem-solving tasks to do with their infants for the next 5 minutes. Warmth (positive affective involvement), sensitivity (e.g., flexibility and contingent responsiveness), and harshness (e.g., intrusive and negative behaviors such as angry/hostile mood and voice, disapproval, and criticism) will be coded based on the global 5-point rating scales of the Early Relational Assessment (Clark, 1999). Higher scores on the rating scales indicate higher frequency of warmth, sensitivity, and harshness.
Time frame: 6 and 12 months of child age
Infant Self-Regulation
The Revised Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R, Gartstein \& Rothbart, 2003) will be used to obtain parent reports of infant reactivity/regulation at 6 and 12 months of infant ages. The scale measures three broad dimensions of behavior Surgency/Extraversion, Negative Affectivity, and Orienting/Regulation. The Surgency/Extraversion dimension includes approach, vocal reactivity, high intensity pleasure, smiling and laughter, activity level, and perceptual sensitivity. The Negative Affectivity dimension includes sadness, distress to limitations, fear, and low falling reactivity. The Orienting/Regulation dimension includes low intensity pleasure, cuddliness, duration of orienting, and soothability. Scores range from 1-7 and higher scores on each dimension reflect higher surgency, negative affect, and regulation. Average of maternal and paternal scores on these three broad dimensions will be included as the final outcome measures.
Time frame: 6 and 12 months of child age
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