TY - JOUR
T1 - Promoting positive parenting and mental wellbeing in Hong Kong Chinese parents
T2 - A pilot cluster randomised controlled trial
AU - Sun, Yuying
AU - Wang, Man Ping
AU - Chan, Christian S.
AU - Lo, Daphne L.O.
AU - Wan, Alice N.T.
AU - Lam, Tai Hing
AU - Ho, Sai Yin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Sun et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - Objective Effective and brief positive parenting interventions could be adopted widely, but evidence is limited. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a positive parenting programme in Hong Kong Chinese parents. Methods We conducted a pilot cluster randomised controlled trial in 2017 in 144 Hong Kong Chinese parents (84.7% women, mean age 42.5 [SD 5.87] years) of school-age children (mean age 10.9 [2.8] years) in 4 family service centres (clusters). The intervention included two 2-hour interactive talks (4 hours in total). The contents covered skills of giving praise, showing appreciation and playing enjoyable family games. The control group was offered the intervention after all the data were collected. Praise, appreciation and enjoyment related behaviours were measured as primary outcomes at baseline, 1 month and 3 months. The secondary outcomes were subjective happiness, wellbeing, personal health and happiness, family health, family happiness and harmony, and family relationship. After the completion of all assessments, five focus group discussions with the parents and four individual indepth interviews with community service providers were conducted to explore their experiences. Results Compared with the control group (n = 69), the intervention group (n = 75) showed greater positive changes in appreciation and enjoyment at 3 months with small effect sizes (d = 0.42 and 0.32, respectively), and greater improvements in the secondary outcomes at 3 months with small effect sizes (d: 0.29-0.48). In the focus groups, the parents reported more praise to their children, better temper control, more focus on their children's strengths and better family relationships. According to the service providers, most of the parents enjoyed the activities. Conclusions The brief intervention in community settings with the engagement of community service providers has shown preliminary effectiveness in promoting positive parenting and mental wellbeing of Hong Kong Chinese parents.
AB - Objective Effective and brief positive parenting interventions could be adopted widely, but evidence is limited. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a positive parenting programme in Hong Kong Chinese parents. Methods We conducted a pilot cluster randomised controlled trial in 2017 in 144 Hong Kong Chinese parents (84.7% women, mean age 42.5 [SD 5.87] years) of school-age children (mean age 10.9 [2.8] years) in 4 family service centres (clusters). The intervention included two 2-hour interactive talks (4 hours in total). The contents covered skills of giving praise, showing appreciation and playing enjoyable family games. The control group was offered the intervention after all the data were collected. Praise, appreciation and enjoyment related behaviours were measured as primary outcomes at baseline, 1 month and 3 months. The secondary outcomes were subjective happiness, wellbeing, personal health and happiness, family health, family happiness and harmony, and family relationship. After the completion of all assessments, five focus group discussions with the parents and four individual indepth interviews with community service providers were conducted to explore their experiences. Results Compared with the control group (n = 69), the intervention group (n = 75) showed greater positive changes in appreciation and enjoyment at 3 months with small effect sizes (d = 0.42 and 0.32, respectively), and greater improvements in the secondary outcomes at 3 months with small effect sizes (d: 0.29-0.48). In the focus groups, the parents reported more praise to their children, better temper control, more focus on their children's strengths and better family relationships. According to the service providers, most of the parents enjoyed the activities. Conclusions The brief intervention in community settings with the engagement of community service providers has shown preliminary effectiveness in promoting positive parenting and mental wellbeing of Hong Kong Chinese parents.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85134618348&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0270064
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0270064
M3 - Article
C2 - 35857769
AN - SCOPUS:85134618348
VL - 17
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 7 July
M1 - e0270064
ER -