Stress experienced by women and men during pregnancy and up to two years after the baby is born (‘the first 1000 days’) can have negative consequences for the parents and the child. The effects of interventions and strategies to prevent or reduce stress demonstrate varying results for health and well-being. This may be because interventions are not always delivered as those who developed the interventions intended them to be. This is known as intervention fidelity, which can also be described as the degree to which the interventions are delivered as they were intended.
This project will examine the fidelity of interventions to reduce or prevent parental stress in the first 1000 days. It will do so by taking studies that have already been identified as part of a larger review looking at the effects of stress reduction and prevention interventions. The studies will each be examined using a standardised fidelity checklist. This checklist will help us determine the degree to which studies report delivering each intervention as intended. Examining the fidelity of stress reduction and prevention interventions that are delivered in the first 1000 days will provide better knowledge of how and why these interventions work, or do not work. This is crucial to enable better development of policies and practices to address parental stress in the future.
