Familia Imara: A Parenting Program to Reduce Family Violence in Tanzania

Mothers will report on their experiences of intimate partner violence in the past six months using a standardized set of violent acts perpetrated by their partner (i.e., the child's father), adapted from the World Health Organization's multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence against women. The primary IPV indicator will be a proportion reflecting the percentage of mothers who report experiencing any form of IPV. In addition, we will calculate separate binary indicators for each type of IPV (physical, sexual, and emotional).

Child dietary diversity will be reported by mothers as the number of food groups (out of eight) consumed by the child in the previous 24 hours, following World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. This measure is assessed in children aged six months and older, with higher scores indicating a greater likelihood of achieving a nutritionally adequate diet.

Parental disciplinary practices will be self-reported by both mothers and fathers in terms of harsh disciplinary practices (e.g., shook the child, shouted at the child) used by the parent towards the child in the past month. Items were adapted from the Child Discipline Module of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. The primary indicator will be a proportion for mothers and fathers who used any harsh disciplinary practices, with separate indicators by type (physical, verbal).

Early child development will be measured using the Caregiver Reported Early Development Instrument (CREDI) long form. It relies on parental reporting and assesses four domains of early developmental milestones: motor, language, cognitive, and socioemotional development. Higher scores reflect a greater number of age-appropriate developmental skills as reported by caregivers.

Attitudes toward intimate partner violence will be reported by mothers and fathers using a tool adapted from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). The instrument assesses whether respondents believe a man is justified in hitting or beating his wife in specific situations. Items are measured using a Likert-type response scale (e.g., strongly agree to strongly disagree). Responses will be coded and summed to create a composite score, with higher scores indicating less accepting attitudes toward intimate partner violence.

Knowledge of child nutrition and development will be reported by mothers and fathers using a structured questionnaire developed by the study team. The instrument includes items on developmental milestones, early learning and responsive caregiving, child nutrition, and infant and young child feeding practices. Respondents will answer a series of true/false and short-answer questions. Two separate indicators will be derived: (1) knowledge of child nutrition, and (2) knowledge of child development. Each indicator will be analyzed separately, with higher scores indicating greater knowledge in the respective domain.

Attitudes toward parenting will be reported by mothers and fathers using a tool developed by Jeong et al. in Tanzania. The tool captures agreement with statements related to developmentally appropriate parenting, general parenting practices, and discipline approaches. Higher scores reflect more positive attitudes toward parenting.

Maternal and paternal stimulation practices will be measured by the Family Care Indicators (FCI), which are reported in terms of the number of developmentally-enriching activities that the parent engaged with the young child in the past week (e.g., singing, telling stories). Activities adapted from the Family Care Indicators. Higher scores indicating greater parental engagement in stimulation activities.

The frequency of communication between partners will be reported by mothers and fathers using a tool developed by the study team. Respondents will rate how often they communicated about a range of topics (e.g., nutrition, child discipline, household finances) with their partner over the past week. Higher scores indicate more frequent communication between partners.

Gender attitudes reported by mothers and fathers regarding gender norms around childcare and domestic responsibilities, household equity, and power dynamics within partner relationships. This measure was developed by Jeong et al. in this context. Higher scores indicate more gender-equitable attitudes.