Family Foundations Coparenting Pilot Trial

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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This is a research study to evaluate the effectiveness of the Family Foundations program and to better understand how families cope with having a new baby. The research questions include: What is the effectiveness of the Family Foundations program? How do families cope with having a new baby?

Official Title
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Promotion of Coparenting During Family Formation Period

Conditions
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Parent-Child Relations

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Family Foundations Coparenting Program


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Expecting first child Couple living together and planning to raise child together 18 years or older Exclusion Criteria: Not first child

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Intervention Group<br>Couples randomly assigned to the Intervention Group received the Family Foundations Coparenting Program. | Behavioral: Family Foundations Coparenting Program<br>* Family Foundations, a program for adult couples expecting their first child, is designed to help them establish positive parenting skills and adjust to the physical, social, and emotional challenges of parenthood. Program topics include coping with postpartum depression and stress, creating a caring environment, and developing the child's social and emotional competence. Family Foundations is delivered to groups of couples through four prenatal and four postnatal classes of 2 hours each. Prenatal classes are started during the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy, and the postnatal classes end when the children are 6 months old. Family Foundations is delivered in a community setting by childbirth educators who have received 3 days of training from Family Foundations staff.<br>|
| No Intervention: Control Group<br>Couples in the Control group did not receive the Family Foundations Coparenting Program. | |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Coparenting Quality | We assessed coparenting relationship quality with the 31-item Coparenting Scale, which was created based on prior work (e.g., Abidin & Brunner, 1995; Cordova, 2001; Frank, Olmstead, Wagner,& Laub, 1991; Margolin et al., 2001; McHale, 1997). The overall score represents an average of items covering theoretically important domains: coparental agreement, support,undermining, and exposure of the child to conflict. | up to 3.5 years after baseline | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Parenting Discipline Practices | The Parenting Scale assesses discipline practices in parents of children from 18-48 months (Arnold,O'Leary, Wolff, & Acker, 1993). | 3.5 years after baseline | 
| Child Behavior Problems | Child behavior problems were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000), reported by mothers only. From this 100-item questionnaire, separate sub-scales were calculated using scoring conventions. From these, we examined three overall scores which were normed for child age: Total problems, Externalizing problems, and Internalizing problems. In addition, we examined two specific sub-scales given their relevance to this study: Aggression and Attention/Hyperactivity. | 3.5 years after baseline | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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First time parents, Coparenting, Family Foundations