Prospective evaluation of parent and child outcomes following admission to a 'virtual' early parenting residential programme

Objectives Australian early parenting residential services provide interventions for families experiencing complex early parenting issues. Many services have recently shifted to virtual care models but the clinical effectiveness of such programmes is currently unknown. This study sought to test outcomes of a 'virtual' early parenting residential programme and to compare these with those of an in-person programme. Design Prospective cohort study; self-report questionnaires on admission, at discharge and 6-week follow-up. Setting An early parenting residential unit in Sydney, Australia. Participants Consecutive series of parent-child dyads admitted to the unit virtually (n=56) or in person (n=44) between August 2021 and January 2022. Interventions Participants in both groups received a 4-night/5-day intervention programme involving access to 24-hour support from a multidisciplinary team of health professionals. The in-person programme was delivered at a residential unit; the virtual programme involved provision of support via video calls, phone calls, SMS and emails. Primary and secondary outcome measures Infant sleep, parenting self-efficacy (primary outcomes); parenting empathy, emotion, hostility, helplessness, mentalisation and stress (secondary outcomes). Results Parents who received the virtual programme reported improvements from admission to discharge, and from admission to 6-week follow-up, in a range of areas including parenting self-efficacy, empathy, mentalisation, hostility, helplessness, stress and infant sleep resistance (ps<0.05). At 6 weeks, they also reported improvements in emotion and understanding related to their child (p<0.05). In contrast to expectation, outcomes at discharge and 6 weeks were not superior in the in-person group. In fact, at 6 weeks, parents who attended the virtual residential group reported significantly lower levels of parenting hostility and parenting stress, and greater levels of parenting confidence compared with those in the in-person group (ps<0.05). Conclusions Virtual early parenting residential interventions may be effective in bringing positive changes for families, and there is no evidence to suggest that outcomes are inferior to those of in-person programmes.