Promoting Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood: Implementation and Evaluation of the VIPP-SD Parenting Intervention in Portugal

Parental sensitivity will be assessed using the the revised Erickson 7-point rating scales for Supportive Presence (from 1 = parent completely fails to be supportive to the child to 7 = parent skilfully provides support throughout the session) and Intrusiveness (from 1 = parent allows the child sufficient time to explore and to attempt to solve tools on her/his own to 7 = parent is highly intrusive; her agenda clearly has precedence over the child's wishes; Egeland et al., 1990). Supportive presence is defined as the consistent emotional, physical, and psychological availability of a mother, characterized by both verbal expressions and nonverbal behaviors. High sensitivity is associated with positive developmental outcomes in children, including secure attachment and better emotional regulation. Intrusiveness reflects the extent to which a parent disregards or interferes with the child's autonomy, wishes, interests, or behaviors.

The assessment tool used in this study is a 25-item questionnaire designed to evaluate emotional and behavioral problems in children aged 2 to 17 years, with responses provided by parents. The items are rated on a 3-point scale: 0 = "Not true," 1 = "A bit true," and 2 = "Very true." The questionnaire is structured into five subscales: (1) emotional symptoms, (2) conduct problems, (3) hyperactivity, (4) peer problems, and (5) prosocial behavior. For this study, only the parent version of the questionnaire is utilized. The total difficulties score is derived by summing the first four subscales (excluding prosocial behavior), yielding a score ranging from 0 to 40.

The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale - 21 (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995; Portuguese version: Apóstolo et al., 2006) is a 21-item self-report questionnaire designed to assess symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in parents. Each item is rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (Did not apply to me at all) to 3 (Applied to me most of the time). The scale comprises three subscales: Depression (7 items), which assesses dysphoria, hopelessness, devaluation of life, self-deprecation, lack of interest or involvement, anhedonia, and inertia; Anxiety (7 items), which measures autonomic arousal, skeletal muscle effects, situational anxiety, and the subjective experience of anxious affect; Stress (7 items), which evaluates chronic, nonspecific arousal, including difficulty relaxing, nervous arousal, irritability, agitation, and impatience. Subscale and total scores are calculated by summing the item responses.

Quality of life among caregivers will be measured with the Assessing Quality of Life - 8 Dimensions (AQOL-8D) (Richardson & Lezzi, 2014) is a multi-attribute utility instrument developed to provide a sensitive and comprehensive assessment of health status among adults across eight dimensions,, including independent living, mental health, coping, relationships, pain, self-worth, happiness and senses) and 35 items with four to six response levels, each representing increasing levels of severity. This measure will be used for economic evaluation.

Resources used by children and their parents will be measured using a questionnaire adapted from published questionnaires by Bouwmans et al, 2013 and Pokhilenko et al. 2023. Resource use will include healthcare services (accident and emergency visits, primary care and specialized outpatient visits and inpatient stays, medication), social services, transportation, absenteeism and presenteeism from both paid and unpaid work, and out-of-pocket expenses. This measure will be used for economic evaluation.

The Child Rearing Practices Report-Questionnaire (CRPR-Q; Rickel & Biasatti, 1982, Ribeiro et al, 2021) is a 40-item parent-report questionnaire used to assess parenting practices that are theoretically and empirically linked to child developmental outcomes. Parents are instructed to respond with reference to a specific child in the household, rating each item on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The measure comprises two theoretically grounded subscales: Nurturance and Restrictiveness