Commentary: Are complex parenting interventions less than the sum of their parts? A reflection on Leijten et al. (2022)

TY - JOUR

T1 - Commentary

T2 - Are complex parenting interventions less than the sum of their parts? A reflection on Leijten et al. (2022)

AU - Fearon, Pasco

AU - Sonuga-Barke, Edmund

N1 - Funding Information: Pasco Fearon has no additional conflicts of interest to declare in relation to this commentary outside of those already stated on the JCPP website. Edmund Sonuga-Barke has been involved in the development of parent training interventions ? New Forest Parenting Programme (NFPP), Structures E-Parenting Scheme (StEPS); Parent Positive. He has received speaker fees for Takeda/Shire and Medice. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

PY - 2022/4

Y1 - 2022/4

N2 - Parenting interventions provide the backbone of professional support for children with behavioural problems and their families (Maughan et al., 2005). The overwhelming evidence for their value, at least in the short term, has prompted the field to move away from simply testing their efficacy to focus on issues of implementation. More and more studies are therefore addressing the interrelated goals of optimising outcomes, increasing scalability and affordability, improving access and removing barriers for hard-to-reach and treat families (e.g., Barnett et al., 2019; Day et al., 2012; Kazdin, 2015). Because parenting interventions are often complex and integrate multiple discrete therapeutic elements, achieving cost-effective interventions that can be implemented efficiently at scale will depend on identifying which elements work best and which are redundant and can be cut. This can help streamline interventions to make them less burdensome by cutting the time, effort and resources needed for families to take part and making the interventions themselves easier to train and deliver. It can also help focus energies on areas where improvements of existing interventions are most needed and/or likely to yield the most value. Leijten and colleagues (2022) addressed these issues in their excellent review. [Abstract copyright: © 2022 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.]

AB - Parenting interventions provide the backbone of professional support for children with behavioural problems and their families (Maughan et al., 2005). The overwhelming evidence for their value, at least in the short term, has prompted the field to move away from simply testing their efficacy to focus on issues of implementation. More and more studies are therefore addressing the interrelated goals of optimising outcomes, increasing scalability and affordability, improving access and removing barriers for hard-to-reach and treat families (e.g., Barnett et al., 2019; Day et al., 2012; Kazdin, 2015). Because parenting interventions are often complex and integrate multiple discrete therapeutic elements, achieving cost-effective interventions that can be implemented efficiently at scale will depend on identifying which elements work best and which are redundant and can be cut. This can help streamline interventions to make them less burdensome by cutting the time, effort and resources needed for families to take part and making the interventions themselves easier to train and deliver. It can also help focus energies on areas where improvements of existing interventions are most needed and/or likely to yield the most value. Leijten and colleagues (2022) addressed these issues in their excellent review. [Abstract copyright: © 2022 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.]

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126025527&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/jcpp.13596

DO - 10.1111/jcpp.13596

M3 - Comment/debate

AN - SCOPUS:85126025527

SN - 0021-9630

VL - 63

SP - 500

EP - 502

JO - Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines

JF - Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines

IS - 4

ER -