Effects of a Brief Parenting Intervention on Latinx Mothers and Their Children

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Prevention and Interventions

Abstract

Purpose: Parent-Child Interactions (PCI) is an RCT home parenting intervention designed to increase positive parenting and deter punitive approaches to child behavior management. Parenting practices among Latinx families may be influenced by salient cultural values, which are rarely accounted for in parenting intervention programs. We believe the PCI intervention includes components that are consistent with parenting values of Latinx families. As such, this study examined the efficacy of PCI intervention at improving parenting skills and associated child outcomes among Latinx participants. Specifically, we examined whether the intervention effects on child functioning outcomes 6- and 12-months post-intervention were mediated by parenting at post-test, which occurred approximately 5 weeks after pre-test. We hypothesized that mother-child dyads who received the intervention would demonstrate greater improvements in parenting skills at post-test than control dyads. We speculated that greater improvements in parenting skills, then, would be positively associated with child cooperative and adaptive behavior, and negatively associated with child internalizing and externalizing behaviors at 6- and 12-months post-intervention. See Figure 1 for our general hypothesized model. Procedures: PCI was disseminated to 170 at-risk Latinx mother-child dyads, the majority of whom were primarily Spanish speaking. The average ages of mothers and children at enrollment were 30.16 (SD = 5.29) and 4.54 years (SD = 0.62), respectively. Mother-child dyads were randomly assigned to one of three conditions using a weighted random number vector: regular PCI, texting-enhanced PCI (T-PCI), or a wait-list control (WLC). Mothers completed self-report measures of their parenting (Keys to Interactive Parenting Scale (Comfort & Gordon, 2006)) and parent-report measures of child functioning (Child Behavior Rating Scale (Carta, 2006), Behavior Assessment Scale for Children-2-Parent Report Scale (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004)). Results: Preliminary analyses indicated no significant differences between regular PCI and T-PCI on primary study variables; thus, these two intervention conditions were combined for the present study. Path modeling was used to examine changes in parenting as a mediator of program efficacy between group assignment and children’s long-term functioning. Results revealed that Latinx parent and child functioning benefited from PCI intervention for up to 6 months following intervention. Specifically, model results indicated significant indirect effects of the PCI intervention on cooperative child behavior and children’s externalizing behaviors mediated by parenting. Mother-child dyads assigned to the treatment group, compared to the control, demonstrated greater improvements in parenting at post-test, which led to greater improvements in child cooperative behavior and greater declines in children’s externalizing behaviors 6-months post-intervention. See Table 1 for all model results. Conclusions and Implications: This study contributes to the expansion of literature on the efficacy of parenting interventions for Latinx families (Parra-Cardona et al., 2017) by evaluating the efficacy of the PCI intervention with an exclusively Latinx sample. Findings support the long-term efficacy of the PCI intervention to enhance positive parenting among at-risk Latinx families and subsequent increases in cooperative child behavior and decreases in children’s externalizing behaviors. Recommendations for future research designing culturally sensitive intervention programs will be discussed.

Authors

• Abigail L. Mills, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Luisa Lopez Mader, University of Missouri - Kansas City
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Elizabeth Burke Lefever, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amy K. Nuttall, Michigan State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Bigelow, University of Kansas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Judith J Carta, University of Kansas
  Non-Presenting Author

• John G Borkowski, Univ. of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author