Psychometric Properties of Parent–Child (0–5 years) Interaction Outcome Measures as Used in Randomized Controlled Trials of Parent Programs: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This systematic review sought to identify observational measures of parent–child interactions commonly implemented in parenting program research, and to assess the level of psychometric evidence available for their use with this age group. Two separate searches of the same databases were conducted; firstly, to identify eligible instruments, and secondly to identify studies reporting on the psychometric properties of the identified measures. Five commercial platforms hosting 19 electronic databases were searched from their inception to conducted search dates. Fourteen measures were identified from Search 1; a systematic search of randomized controlled trial evaluations of parenting programs. For Search 2, inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied to 1327 retrieved papers that described the development and/or validation of the 14 measures identified in Search 1. Seventeen articles met the inclusion criteria, resulting in five observational measures for the final review. Data were extracted and synthesized using the COSMIN rating system to describe the methodological quality of each article alongside the overall quality rating of the psychometric property reported for each measure using the Terwee checklist. Measure reliability was categorized into four domains (internal consistency, test-re-test, inter-rater, and intra-rater). Measure validity was categorized into four domains (content, structural, convergent/divergent, and discriminant). Results indicated that the majority of psychometric evidence related to children aged from birth the three with internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and structural validity the most commonly reported properties, although this evidence was often weak. The findings suggest further validation of the included measures is required to establish acceptability for the whole target age group. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10567-019-00275-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Fatherhood Matters: An Integrative Review of Fatherhood Intervention Research

“…The rating system for outcomes was devised based upon the system described by Gridley et al (2019), in a systematic review that measured outcomes of randomized trials of parenting programs. Articles were labeled as robust if the interventions yielded positive outcomes across three father and/ or child domains.…”

Measuring bonding or attachment in the parent-infant-relationship: A systematic review of parent-report assessment measures, their psychometric properties and clinical utility

“…The ‘gold standard’ for the assessment of parent-child-attachment, and as such the reciprocal aspect of the parent-child-relationship, is via the use of behavioral, observational measures used with parents or other caregivers and their children over 1 year old, such as the Strange Situation task ( Ainsworth et al, 1978 ) and the Attachment Q-Set ( Waters & Deane, 1985 ). Several observational assessment tools exist to evaluate attachment and interaction behaviours between parent and child (up to 30 months old) (e.g., for reviews see Gridley et al, 2019 ; Lotzin et al, 2015 ; Mesman & Emmen, 2013 ; Tryphonopoulos, Letourneau, & Ditommaso, 2014 ). However, these measures have two key limitations.…”

Measuring parent strategy use in early intervention: Reliability and validity of the Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention Fidelity Rating Scale across strategy types

“…Observational measures are the gold standard for evaluating parent-child interactions (Gridley et al, 2019). Such measures can be broadly described as using one of two types of coding methods.…”