A Randomised Controlled Trial of Healthier Wealthier Families in Sweden

N/ATerminatedNCT05511961

Uppsala University31 enrolled

Overview

Healthier Wealthier Families is a way of working, where child health nurses ask parents about their financial situation and connect them to a free financial help service, if needed. To test whether it helps families, the investigators will randomly select half of the families who want to take part to go to the service straight away and half around 3 months later. Both groups of parents will receive a book about parenting and finances straight away. The investigators will compare how the groups of parents answer on survey questions about meeting the costs of their children's needs, their financial knowledge, financial control, readiness to change, success on personal finance goals, mental health and financial stigma. The investigators predict that the parents who are offered the financial help service straight away will answer more positively on the survey questions. The investigators will ask all parents the survey questions again around 12 months later to see how they are doing.

The Healthier Wealthier Families (HWF) model implements universal screening for economic hardship into child health services and creates a referral pathway to economic support services. To test this, the investigators will conduct a randomised control trial. A longitudinal follow-up with the cohort will explore whether any effects are maintained in the longer-term. The study hypotheses are that families who have received municipal budget and debt counselling services via the HWF model will report a lower rate of child material and social deprivation. Also, that the intervention arm will report greater financial knowledge, financial control, readiness for change, attainment of personal goals to improve one's financial situation, parental mental health and less financial stigma than the waitlist-control arm

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

Interventions

Healthier Wealthier FamiliesBEHAVIORAL

Budget and debt counselling will involve at least one meeting with a counsellor. Examples of assistance the counsellors can offer include: suggestions on ways to improve a participant's financial situation; checking eligibility and helping to apply for social welfare support; helping to organise finances and develop a budget; and assistance with debt management, threatening letters or harassment by debt collectors, or imminent house eviction. The municipal budget and debt counselling services involved in the trial will receive guidance on how to work preventatively with families, which will align with the content of the 'Your child, your money'. The book covers topics such as planning finances, consumer rights, private insurance, family law, parental leave, pensions, saving, and budgeting.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Parent / caregiver of at least one child aged 0-5 years * The family is listed at the participating child health care centre * Parent / caregiver reports at least one risk factor for economic hardship on specified screening questions * Parent / caregiver lives within the geographical areas served by the participating financial counselling service * Parent / caregiver has given informed consent Exclusion Criteria: * Parent / caregiver does not understand the recruitment invitation. * Parent / caregiver is already an active user of a financial counselling service.

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Child material and social deprivation (MSD)

The European Union (EU) measure of child MSD contains 17 items; 13 child-specific items. Parents are asked to indicate whether or not they have the item. If not, they are asked if it is because they cannot afford it (enforced lack) or for another reason (simple lack). Data are collected at the household level; if one child does not have an item it is assumed that all the children in the household lack that item.