Longitudinal Measurement Invariance of the Parenting Sense of Competence (PSoC): Evidence to Question Its Use?

Background: This study investigated the factor structure of the parenting sense of competence (PSoC), a measure of parenting self-efficacy, in a sample of parents recruited when their infants were under 2 months old. Due to the lack of longitudinal analysis of the PSoC's factor structure over time, the study sought to establish if the published two-factor structure was consistent over an 18-month period.

Methods: Data collected from 536 parents who had participated in a randomised controlled trial of universal proportionate parenting support, delivered in five sites in England, were subject to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Editorial Perspective: A systems approach to addressing young people's mental health.

This editorial explores how adopting a social determinants and systemic perspective can enhance preventative measures to boost the mental health of young people. It argues that to effectively elevate the mental health of young people, it is essential to tackle both the overarching influences and their specific local impacts. We maintain that a strategy combining systems thinking with evidence tailored to the local environment and participatory design is essential.

A framework to conceptualize social prescribing services from a prevention perspective.

Objective: Social prescribing models are expanding worldwide to serve multiple goals, such as attending to social conditions that affect people's health, supporting patients with mental health issues or other long-term conditions, facilitating community building and reducing demands on the health care system. Implicitly, many social prescribing services seek to promote health, prevent morbidity or deterioration of disease. Given that the scientific literature currently does not systematically describe these services as preventive service models, we propose a framework to explicitly conceptualize social prescribing from a prevention perspective.

The context, need, limitations, and delivery of children and young people's social prescribing.

This commentary is on the original article by Ostojic et al. on pages 223–234 of this issue.

Understanding Knowledge Mobilisation between Community Champions and Parents: Evidence from a Community-Based Programme to Support Parents with Young Children.

Background: Community champions have been employed across various settings to disseminate evidence-based public health information. The Building Babies' Brains programme trains champions to work with parents in communities, equipping them with child development knowledge and parental engagement strategies. We explored what makes community champions effective in distributing information to parents, including how the champion-parent relationship and champions' personal characteristics affect information dissemination.