An open pilot of GROW, a responsive parenting intervention for young children with brain injuries: preliminary efficacy.

PURPOSE

Families experience stress and burden following their child's traumatic brain injury (TBI). Parenting styles are related to parent stress and child behavior problems and executive dysfunction. Parent-child interactions are shown to be a promising intervention target. We aimed to examine the preliminary efficacy of Gaining Real life skills Over the Web (GROW) in improving responsive parenting and reducing parent stress and depression in parents of children ages 0-4 who experienced TBI.

METHOD

Participants ( = 11) were parents of children four years old or younger, at the time of enrollment, and previously hospitalized overnight for TBI. Parent-reported measures included the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Parenting Stress Inventory-Short Form, and Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System. Recordings of parent-child interactions were coded using the Play and Learning Strategies coding scheme. Study hypotheses were analyzed using independent samples -tests, chi square analyses, and linear mixed models.

RESULTS

Parental warmth (=-3.64,  = 0.001, =.97), responsiveness (-2.09,  0.047,  = 0.70), and verbal stimulation (-2.30,  0.029,  = 0.75) increased significantly from pretreatment to posttreatment. Improvements in parental warmth were maintained 3 months posttreatment (-3.15,  0.004,  = 1.16). There were no significant changes in depression, parental stress, or quality of life.

CONCLUSIONS

Results provide preliminary support for the efficacy of GROW in improving responsive parenting for children following early TBI. Future directions include tailoring GROW to better fit the needs of families and testing the utility through a randomized control trial.