Brock Donna-Jean P, Marek Lydia I, Matteo-Kerney Cheryl, Bagby Tammy
Evaluation Consulting Services, Inc., Virginia, United States.
Department of Human Development, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia, United States.
Health Promot Perspect. 2013 Dec 31;3(2):230-41. doi: 10.5681/hpp.2013.026. eCollection 2013.
Programs that focus on positive parenting have been shown to improve parental attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors, and increase parent and child bonding. These programs are typically conducted in a closed group for-mat. However, when individual or community needs are more immediate, programmers sometimes opt for an open group format. To determine the effectiveness of this adaptation to an open group format, the present study compared both groups on parental out-comes.
Both closed and open group formats were offered and implemented between January 2009 and December 2012. Participants for both formats were recruited through similar means and the format placement for each family was determined by the immediacy of the need for an intervention, the time lapse until a new cycle would begin, and scheduling flexibility. Chi-Square analyses were conducted to determine demographic differences between the two groups and gain scores were calculated from the pre- and post-test AAPI-2 scales within a mixed MANOVA to determine group format effectiveness.
Though open groups contained higher risk families; parental outcome improvements were significant for both groups. All participants, regardless of group membership, demonstrated the same statistically significant improvements following completion of the program.
Findings provide support for adapting group formats when necessary to fit community and individual needs.
专注于积极育儿的项目已被证明能改善父母的态度、知识和行为，并增强亲子关系。这些项目通常以封闭小组的形式开展。然而，当个人或社区需求更为紧迫时，项目策划者有时会选择开放小组的形式。为了确定这种向开放小组形式转变的有效性，本研究比较了两组在父母相关结果方面的情况。
在2009年1月至2012年12月期间提供并实施了封闭和开放两种小组形式。两种形式的参与者通过相似的方式招募，每个家庭的形式安排由干预需求的紧迫性、新周期开始前的时间间隔以及日程安排的灵活性决定。进行卡方分析以确定两组之间的人口统计学差异，并在混合多变量方差分析中根据AAPI - 2量表的前后测计算得分增益，以确定小组形式的有效性。
尽管开放小组包含风险较高的家庭，但两组在父母相关结果方面都有显著改善。所有参与者，无论所属小组如何，在项目完成后都表现出相同的具有统计学意义的改善。
研究结果支持在必要时调整小组形式以适应社区和个人需求。
