Feasibility and effectiveness of `gaining Health & wellbeing from birth to three´ positive parenting programme

Parental promotion of an adequate environment during early childhood results in healthy child development. This study evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of the positive parenting programme, ‘Gaining health and wellbeing from birth to three’ (GH&W), as a universal prevention strategy. Participants were 87 parents with children 36 months old attending 20 primary care centres. Centres were randomly assigned to three GH&W intervention levels: online course (level 1), online course plus group workshops (level 2), and online course plus group workshops plus individual support at medical check-ups (level 3), delivered by healthcare professionals. As for feasibility, participants in levels 2 and 3 reported higher utility and satisfaction with the online course than participants in level 1. Pretest-posttest comparisons and cluster analysis showed that participants in level 3 achieved the best results and were associated with a consolidated cluster characterised by improvements in health promotion activities, parental self-regulation, and satisfaction with the service, whereas participants in levels 1 and 2 showed fewer improvements and were associated with initial and transitional clusters. The GH&W programme improves the universal reach of web-based courses and efficiently activates the contribution of the primary care system to the support network for healthy child development and wellbeing.