Objective: Digital interventions hold important potential for supporting parents when face-to-face interventions are unavailable. We assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of a digital parenting intervention in Zambia and Tanzania.
Methods: Using a randomised controlled trial, we evaluated the Sharing Stories digital parenting intervention for caregivers of children aged 9-32 months with access to a smartphone in their household. Caregivers were stratified based on child age and randomly assigned to the intervention or waitlist control arm. The intervention was delivered via facilitated WhatsApp groups over 6 weeks to promote caregiver wellbeing and responsive caregiving through shared reading activities. Primary outcomes were caregiver-reported responsive caregiving, child language and socio-emotional development. Secondary outcomes were caregiver mental health and parental stress. Masked assessors conducted assessments at baseline and immediate follow-up.
Results: Between October 2020 and March 2021, we randomly assigned 494 caregiver-child dyads to the intervention ( = 248) or waitlist control ( = 246) arm. Caregivers in the intervention group reported more responsive caregiving (OR = 2.55, 95% CI: 1.15-5.66, = 0.02), time reading or looking at books (β = 0.45, = 0.04) and telling stories (β = 0.72, = 0.002). Intervention caregivers reported significantly lower symptoms of depression (β = -0.64, = 0.05) and anxiety (β = -0.65, = 0.02). Child development and parental stress did not differ significantly between groups.
Conclusions: Digital parenting interventions using WhatsApp can effectively promote responsive caregiving and caregiver mental health in low-resource settings, with great potential for scalability.
Trial Registration: ISRCTN database, ISRCTN77689525.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10624105 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20552076231203893 | DOI Listing |
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