LETTER

Improving mental health through parenting programmes: are the results valid?

S S Gada¹, S Kanumakala¹

¹ Department of Paediatrics, The Royal Free Hospital, Pond Street, London NW3 2QG, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to Dr Gada; sri@doctors.org.uk

Keywords: behaviour problems; parenting programme; primary care; trial

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We read the article by Patterson et al with interest.¹ Firstly, the percentage of questionnaires returned from the survey should have been 61.8% not 70%, as reported.

Secondly, mental health problems are prevalent in people of lower socioeconomic class. Unfortunately, working class parents were seriously under-represented in the study. The results from educated and predominantly caucasian people from Oxford are not applicable to areas like ours. In the Camden and Islington boroughs of London, we work with parents of mostly lower socioeconomic class and of varied ethnicity—from Albania to Zaire—to whom these results are not relevant. We need more studies conducted in these people to know the best evidence.

Thirdly, the intervention effect is seen at 6 months (short term) follow up. We wonder whether the maturational effect seen in the control group will actually decrease the effect of parenting in the intervention group in the long term?¹ Moreover the . . . [Full text of this article]

S Stewart-Brown², J Patterson², J Barlow²

² Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Stewart-Brown, Health Services Research Unit, Institute of Health Sciences, Old Road, Headington, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK;
sarah.stewart-brown@public-health.oxford.ac.uk

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