How much do we know about the long-term effectiveness of parenting programs? Advances, shortcomings, and future directions

• Purpose: Parenting programmes are seen as feasible and cost-effective in preventing early behavioural problems in children and adolescents. A number of studies have concluded that such programmes are effective in reducing child problem behaviours and improving the skills and well-being of parents. Nevertheless, less is known about long-term programme effects.Design/methodology/approach: A non meta-analytic discussion.Findings: Long-term evaluations of parenting programmes suffer from a number of methodological weaknesses resulting in an inability to make robust causal inferences about child and parent outcomes in the longer term. The current evidence is favorable but is likely to be biased by methodological weaknesses. There is a need for more studies of greater methodological strength to obtain conclusive evidence that would guide empirical research, practice and policy.Originality/value: The paper discusses weaknesses in long-term evaluations of parenting programmes and highlights concrete future directions toward improving the quality of study design, evaluation and data analysis.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Effectiveness

Parenting

Parenting programmes

Efficacy

Evaluation design

Long-term evaluation

Psychology

Psykologi

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)