Effectiveness of a Foster Parent Intervention: Results of a Trial

Not Applicable

• Conditions: Parent-child Problem; Problematic Behavior in Children
• Interventions: Behavioral: Foster parent intervention

• Registration Number: NCT01821755
• Lead Sponsor: Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Brief Summary

The hypothesis of the study is that the intervention leads to a reduction in foster children's externalizing problems and foster parents' parenting stress and that this in turn leads to a reduction in the number of breakdowns of foster placements.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2011-01
• Study First Submitted: 2013-02-19
• Study First Submitted QC: 2013-03-29
• Status Verified: 2013-04
• Study First Posted: 2013-04-01
• Last Update Submitted: 2013-04-04
• Last Update Posted: 2013-04-05
• Primary Completion: 2013-05
• Study Completion: 2013-05

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 63

Inclusion Criteria

• foster child has a borderline or clinical score on one of the small-band externalizing scales or the broad-band externalizing scale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)

Exclusion Criteria

foster child:

• has a mental retardation,
• autism,
• uses psychotropic medication in an inconsistent way,
• behavioral problems are the result of medical problems or medication, foster parents:
• have insufficient knowledge of Dutch,
• have low cognitive abilities,
• are already receiving professional support for the foster child's externalizing problems,
• are divorcing.

Moreover, foster placements were excluded if at least two of the following criteria were present:

• foster parents considered terminating the foster placement during the past two months
• were experiencing psychological distress (measured with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ; Koeter & Ormel, 1991) and defined as a score ≥ 2),
• their foster child had a sum score above 3 (for children < 6 years) or 5 (for children ≥ 6 years) on the critical CBCL-items.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Behavioral: Foster parent intervention	Foster parent intervention	Foster parents receive a foster parent intervention consisting of 10 individual home visits and three group sessions. Duration of the intervention is four months

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in foster child's externalizing problems from baseline to post-intervention (3.5 months later)	Assessed at two time points: at baseline (before the start of the intervention) en post-intervention (immediately after the intervention has ended, which is on average 3.5 months after the baseline measurement)	T-score for the externalizing subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)
Change in foster child's externalizing problems from post-intervention to follow-up (3 months later)	Assessed at post-interventio (immediately after the intervention has ended, which is about 3.5 months after the baseline measurement) and at follow-up (which is thee months later than the post-intervention measurement).	The T-score of the Externalizing scale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in foster parent's parenting stress from baseline to post-intervention (3.5 months later)	Assessed at two time points: at baseline (before the start of the intervention) en post-intervention (immediately after the intervention has ended, which is on average 3.5 months after the baseline measurement)	Nijmegen Questionnaire for the Parenting Situation
Change in foster mother's parenting stress from post-intervention to follow-up (3 months later)	Assessed at post-interventio (immediately after the intervention has ended, which is about 3.5 months after the baseline measurement) and at follow-up (which is thee months later than the post-intervention measurement).	The Nijmegen Questionnaire for the parenting situation
Client satisfaction	At post-intervention (immediately after the intervention has ended, which is on average 3.5 months later than the baseline measurment	Dutch Questionaire for client satisfaction and effect
Change in foster mother's parenting behavior from baseline to post-intervention (3.5 months later)	Assessed at two time points: at baseline (before the start of the intervention) en post-intervention (immediately after the intervention has ended, which is on average 3.5 months after the baseline measurement)	The Ghent Parenting Behavior Scale

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Vrije Universiteit Brussel; 🇧🇪 Brussel, Vlaams-Brabant, Belgium