Early Intervention With the Marte Meo Method
Condition: Health Behavior; Mother-Child Relations
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Early intervention with the Marte Meo method. Aim to study whether the program have effect
      on:

      Maternal confidence, maternal stress, maternal mood (EPDS), dyadic synchrony (Infant care
      index), and infants social competences (ASQ:SE)
    

Detailed description: 
      Relations between infant and vulnerable first time's mothers - Does video guidance with the
      Marte Meo method promote the process? Intervention study in a community setting

      Background Infants develop their mentality, social and psychologically competencies in
      relations with parents and sensitive and responsive caregiving is important for infant's
      healthy development. Maternal responsiveness defined as the mother's ability to recognise
      infant's cues and act on those is a key to promote a secure child. At risk are
      unsecure/uncertain mothers, postpartum depressed mothers, mothers with preterm children and
      infants who in the perspective of the mother cries persistent and/or does not sleep well.

      Danish public health nurses do home-visiting parents and they have opportunity to support
      parents in the development of relations to the infants. Some nurse's uses video-guidance with
      the Marte Meo method to promote the development of a healthy parent-infant relations, but
      knowledge about the effect of parent's having received video-guidance with the method is
      lacking.

      Study part 1 Aim: To develop a screening tool to help public health nurses to identify
      unsecure mothers.

      Design: Intervention Mapping step 1. Need assessment and development of few questions as a
      screening tool. Test of questions by face and content validation.

      Study part 2 Develop a standardised preventive program step 2-4 in Intervention Mapping. The
      intervention is done by public health nurses, in home visits to first times mothers in the
      period from the child 2 to 6 months aged. The intervention includes 2-5 home visits with
      video-guidance's and has focus on the mother's ability to recognise infant's cues and act on
      those.

      Excluded are families at sever risk who have been referred to treatment by psychiatric,
      psychological or social apartment.

      Study 3 Test the program. Goal: to promote mothers parental self-efficacy, minimise mother's
      stress and mother's depressive mood. To promote infants social competences and promote
      mothers responsiveness and interaction with the infant.

      Design: Quasi-experimental design. The intervention within 5 municipals with 36
      "interventions public health nurses" (having a 1 ½ year educations as a Marte Meo therapist)
      and 85 "control public health nurses" who works as usually. The intervention group will
      includes 60 families and they will be matches with 60 families from the control groups.

      Test: All first times mothers in the 5 municipals, when the children are 8 weeks old and
      after the intervention has stopped, when the children are 6 months old.

      Test: All public health nurses when the interventions start and when the intervention stops.
    

Intervention name(s): Early intervention
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Interventions by health visitors with 18 months training in the Marte Meo method in order to promote relations between parents and infants.
Other intervention name(s): Video gudiance with the Marte Meo method; Relations between infants and vulnerable first times mothers
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Early intervention; Intervention study; Infant mother relations; First time mothers; Parental program; Marte Meo method; Video guidances