Intervention to Increase Father Involvement

OVERVIEW

An intervention was implemented with the goal of improving father-child interactions and increase father involvement for first-time fathers. One hundred sixty-five participants were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group, with the treatment group participating in eight educational sessions pre- and postpartum. Through the use of parent self-report questionnaires, coded observations of parent-child play, and time diaries, outcomes were assessed. There were some positive effects in terms of fathers’ interaction skills with their child, and father accessibility (to the child) on the day when the father worked outside of the home.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: First-time fathers

An educational intervention for the transition to fatherhood was created. The program sought out to enhance the quality of interaction between father and child, and increase father involvement among first-time fathers. Specifically, the researchers were looking to enhance fathers’ knowledge, skills, and commitment to the fatherhood role, to increase the support that fathers received from mothers, as well as increase their expectations for the fathers’ involvement, to encourage teamwork in the couple, and to find better ways for the couple to deal with contextual factors such as work.

Participants received eight educational sessions (the first one being a home visitation, and subsequent sessions taking place at clinics). These sessions occurred monthly and began during the second trimester of the pregnancy, and continued until about five months after the birth. Participants were divided into 17 groups that were led by 4 teams of parent educators (averaging 15 years of experience).

The curriculum consisted of mini lectures, group discussions, group discussion, videotapes, skill demonstration, role playing, and use of new parent role models.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Doherty, W.J., Erickson, M.F., and LaRossa, R. (2006). An Intervention to Increase Father Involvement and Skills With Infants During the Transition to Parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology, 20(3), 438-447.

Evaluated population: 165 couples were initially recruited to participate in the study. Couples were recruited from obstetrical clinics on the basis of four criteria: both parents had to be over the age of 18, married or cohabiting, in the second trimester, and expecting their first child.

Participants were oversampled at a rate of 5/4 for the intervention group vs. the control group, because the researchers expected more people to drop out of the intervention group due to the greater time and energy commitments expected of this group. Therefore, 95 couples were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 70 to the control group. By the 12 month assessment, this had dropped to 74 couples in the intervention group and 67 in the control group. After discovering several problems with 9 of the couples, and concluding that these had not received an adequate intervention, the researchers dropped them from the data before doing the outcome analysis – bringing the number to 65 couples in the intervention group and 67 in the control. But in order to keep with an intent-to-treat intervention design, the researchers also conducted analyses that included these 9 couples. Only intent-to-treat results are presented.

Participants were mostly from a middle-class background; two-thirds had college degrees and over half earned more than $75,000 as a couple. Sixteen percent of the couples were of a mixed race ethnicity, and 3% were of a same non-white ethnicity. The median age for mothers was 30, and for fathers it was 31. One hundred fifty-six of the couples were married and 9 were cohabiting.

Approach: At the end of each educational session, checklists were completed by educators in order to assess fidelity to the curriculum. There was also an observer taking notes during the sessions. Parents, educators, and observers were asked to complete self-report evaluations of the program.

The study focused on the quality of father-child interaction and father involvement, which were assessed using self-report questionnaires, a detailed time record, and observations of parent-child interactions. Videotaped home observations of parent-child play were rated using the Parent Behavior Rating Scale ( a 7-point scale which codes for warmth/intrusiveness, engagement with child, positive affect, negative affect, and dyadic synchrony), in order to assess father-child interaction quality. Father involvement was assessed using the Interaction/Accessibility Time Chart (in which parents are asked to complete time diaries containing detailed, hour-by-hour information of their engagement and accessibility with the child), and the Parental Responsibility Scale (a self-report questionnaire complete jointly by parents and which seeks to determine which parent has the responsibility for 14 common child tasks, based on a 5-point scale).

Results: Intent-to-treat analyses indicate significant impacts for warmth/emotional support and dyadic synchrony, but nothing else. The effect sizes for overall interaction quality were .36 at 6 months after birth, and .16 at 12 months. In terms of father involvement, the effect size at 6 months is .42, but drops slightly to .26 at 12 months. Also, parallel interaction on work days (which is the amount of time the father spends doing another activity while with the child) has an effect size of .56 at 6 months after birth and .23 at 12 months. No statistically significant impacts were found for intrusiveness, engagement with child, positive affect, negative affect, and overall quality.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

References

Program categorized in this guide according to the following:

Evaluated participant ages: 0-5

Program components: parent or family component

Measured outcomes: social and emotional health and development; life skills

Program information last updated 9/12/08.