Evaluating a health promoting intervention program – A study of the effects of the ‘Stine Sofie Parental Package’ for expecting and new parents
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In 2019 Kripos did a review of criminal cases of serious violence against children under the age of four in Norway and found that more than half of the children exposed to violence were five months or younger when the injury was discovered. A quarter of the children were two months or younger. Children who experience violence at an early age have an increased risk of experiencing mental and physical health problems later in life. Early intervention is important to prevent and identify violence against children.
Experiencing challenges in the parental role can be a significant source of stress for parents. Parents who perceive themselves as competent in parenting (parental self-efficacy) are more likely to assess challenging situations as less problematic and have confidence in their ability to resolve these. This might lead to more positive interactions between parent and child as well. Intervention programs giving parents increased knowledge and strategies can reduce stress and the risk of acts of violence. For example, intervention programs that emphasize giving new parents information on why babies cry and strategies for dealing with this have proven to be useful in reducing the risk of violence. The Stine Sofie Foundation (SSF) is a non-profit Norwegian foundation that works to uncover and protect children from violence and abuse, and to ensure children's legal rights. SSF have developed an intervention program (Stine Sofie Parental Package) which will help to prevent and identify violence and abuse against children. The focus of the PhD project is to investigate the potential effects the intervention program from SSF has on parental confidence and parental self-efficacy.
The Stine Sofie Parental Package was developed in collaboration with healthcare professionals and parents, and the content of the program will help parents and healthcare professionals with addressing important topics that constitute risk factors for violence and abuse. These topics are already laid down in the guidelines for maternity care and the primary health care unit program. The parental package gives parents knowledge about the consequences of violence against young children, and strategies for dealing with demanding situations and stress. The intention is that increased knowledge and use of appropriate strategies can contribute to parental confidence and parental self-efficacy, and secondarily reduce the risk of violence in the long run. SSF and the Norwegian Institute of Public health (NIPH) are collaborating on a research project to evaluate the intervention program. The PhD candidate is employed at the NIPH and will also be associated with the Department of Psychosocial Science at the University of Bergen during the project period.
The aim of the PhD project is to evaluate the Stine Sofie Parental Package in a process evaluation and an effect evaluation. For the process evaluation, focus group interviews with healthcare professionals will be conducted to investigate possible challenges and possibilities regarding the implementation of the program. Healthcare professionals will also be invited to answer a survey about the program. For the effect evaluation, we will compare a group that has been introduced to the program with a group that has not been introduced to the program. The primary outcomes of interest are a) parenting confidence and b) parental self-efficacy. The PhD project also involves an analysis of user activity on www.10smartetips.no, which is a web-application of the parental package. The aim is to examine which parts of the package is used the most and least, when the app is used and which platform is used to visit the app. This data will be discussed in the first paper in the PhD project, where the focus will be on parent’s use of the package and improvement potentials.
