Assessment of the "Appui Parental": A Program of Early Support to Parenthood

September 20, 2023 updated by: University Hospital, Montpellier

In so-called at risk families, the child-parent attachment relationship is more difficult to set up and this can be a barrier to social and emotional development of young children. To help parents build and sustain this relationship, and to prevent child development disorders, many parenting programs have been created, usually with frequent home visits by early childhood professionals. In France, therapeutic interventions at home are little used and they are not evaluated.

In Montpellier, an action of this type has been conducted since 2001 by the "Conseil Départemental de l'Hérault" in collaboration with the University Hospital of Montpellier including, in addition to home visits, supervision of professionals: the Appui Parental Program.

Before extending this action to other areas of Herault, the "Conseil Départemental de l'Hérault", the "Abri Languedocien" and the University Hospital of Montpellier are conducting an assessment to know the effectiveness of the program for families under care.

This 3-year multicenter prospective study includes 88 children aged 1 to 20 months from families meeting vulnerability criteria previously defined, 44 benefiting Appui Parental program (experimental group) and 44 benefiting a regular support (control group).

A paediatric examination on the basis of the Denver scale, parental questionnaires, questionnaires to professionals and an a video of infant-parent interactions are used. The data, collected at baseline and 18 months later, will be compared.

Study Overview

Detailed Description

Objective: the main objective of this study is to determine the efficiency of Appui Parental program by evaluating its impact on the development of children aged from 0 to 3 years. The secondary objectives are to study the effects of the intervention on: the mother-child interactions, the degree of therapeutic alliance between parent and professionals, the parenting skills feeling, perceived social support, anxiety and depression of parents, frequency of legal interventions (placements, educational measures). An assessment of stress among professionals involved in the study and evaluation of the therapeutic alliance with families will also be conducted to assess the effectiveness of the supervision included in the program.

Hypothesis: Scores on Symptom Check List after 18 months of follow up will be significantly higher in subjects who benefited the Appui Parental program compared to subjects with conventional parental support. Similarly, it is expected that other developmental assessments of children have the best results in the Appui Parental Program group than in the control group. Finally, it is assumed that the mother-child interactions, the parenting skills feeling, and the therapeutic alliance between parent and professional are better in the Appui Parental program than in the control group.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

88

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

      • Montpellier, France
        • University Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

1 month to 1 year (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • family with child between 1 and 20 months of age and with parents eligible to parental support,
  • written informed consent signed by both parents or 1 legal guardian,
  • vulnerability criteria with difficulties to meet the needs of their child,
  • family affiliated to social security.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • mother having delusional psychosis,
  • family whose child is in danger and needs an immediate protective measure,
  • ongoing justice procedure for the child,
  • family with impossibility to follow-up during 18 months,
  • non French-speaking parents.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: Non-Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: "Appui Parental" program (44 cases)
Other: Regular parental support (44 cases)
Usual intervention

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Symptom Check-List (SCL) score variation
Time Frame: up to 18 months
up to 18 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Child Behavior Check-List (CBCL) score variation
Time Frame: up to 18 months
up to 18 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

April 4, 2014

Primary Completion (Actual)

October 18, 2022

Study Completion (Actual)

October 18, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 30, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 8, 2016

First Posted (Estimated)

September 9, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

September 21, 2023

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 20, 2023

Last Verified

September 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 9237

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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