Predictors and Effect of Service Dosage on Parental Involvement for Mothers Enrolled in Home Visiting Programs

Background:  Early childhood is a critical period in the lives of all children. Center-based early childhood programs reach just over half of all children before they start kindergarten. As one strategy to reach children unserved by center-based programs and promote parenting skills, the federal government recently invested in and implemented the Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program to expand states’ home visiting capacity.  The purpose of this study is two-fold: 1) determine what factors predict parental involvement at baseline for women and mothers enrolled into Kansas MIECHV home visiting services and 2) investigate whether dosage of the number of home visits received is associated with improved parental involvement after one year of home visiting services.

Methods:  Participants were 271 mothers enrolled in Kansas MIECHV who completed a baseline parental involvement measure.  The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Involvement Subscale is used to measure parental involvement in their child's learning and maturing behaviors. Scores on the HOME Involvement Subscale range 0 to 6 with higher scores indicating higher levels of parental involvement.  Using multiple regression, the study included six covariates to determine their association to parental involvement.  A bivariate analysis was conducted on a sub-sample of 63 mothers who completed an annual follow-up administration of the HOME Involvement Subscale to determine if number of home visits received was associated with parental involvement.

Results: Findings from the multiple regression indicated two factors, mother’s education and rural-urban classification, were significantly associated with higher parental involvement scores at baseline. Specifically, women with some college education or more scored more than a half of a point higher on baseline parental involvement scores than mothers with less than some college education (p <.05). Mothers living in urban counties scored about one-third of a point higher than women in rural counties (p <.05).  Findings from the bivariate analysis revealed no significant association between number of home visits and parental involvement at annual follow-up; however, when bivariate findings were split by program model, one model (Parents As Teachers) trends toward significance (p= .061). 

Implications and Conclusions:  These findings may be of interest to practitioners and policy-makers as they underscore the importance of further intervention development and proper targeting of certain participant populations.  Less educated women and women living in rural areas may require refined and tailored services surrounding parenting functions and behaviors.  Further research is needed to investigate the role of home visit dosage contributing to parenting outcomes.  Such efforts will ensure home visiting models remain evidence-based and able to demonstrate impact.  More research could also seek to determine optimal dosage needed to achieve positive parenting outcomes.