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Systematic Review
The authors state:
"To assess the effectiveness of mindfulness‐enhanced parent training programmes on the psychosocial functioning of children (aged 0 to 18 years) and their parents."
Eleven studies met our inclusion criteria, including one ongoing study. The studies compared a mindfulness‐enhanced parent training programme with a no‐treatment, waitlist, or attentional control (2 studies); a parent training programme with no mindfulness component (5 studies); both a no‐treatment, waitlist, or attentional control and a parent training programme with no mindfulness component (4 studies). We assessed all studies as being at an unclear or high risk of bias across multiple domains. We pooled child and parent outcome data from 2118 participants to produce effect estimates. No study explicitly reported on self‐compassion, and no adverse effects were reported in any of the studies.
Mindfulness‐enhanced parent training programmes compared to a no‐treatment, waitlist, or attentional control
Very low certainty evidence suggests there may be a small to moderate postintervention improvement in child emotional and behavioural adjustment (standardised mean difference (SMD) −0.46, 95% confidence interval (CI) −0.96 to 0.03; P = 0.06, I2 = 62%; 3 studies, 270 participants); a small improvement in parenting skills (SMD 0.22, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.39; P = 0.008, I2 = 0%; 3 studies, 587 participants); and a moderate decrease in parental depression or anxiety (SMD −0.50, 95% CI −0.96 to −0.04; P = 0.03; 1 study, 75 participants). There may also be a moderate to large decrease in parenting stress (SMD −0.79, 95% CI −1.80 to 0.23; P = 0.13, I2 = 82%; 2 studies, 112 participants) and a small improvement in parent mindfulness (SMD 0.21, 95% CI −0.14 to 0.56; P = 0.24, I2 = 69%; 3 studies, 515 participants), but we were not able to exclude little to no effect for these outcomes.
Mindfulness‐enhanced parent training programmes compared to parent training with no mindfulness component
Very low certainty evidence suggests there may be little to no difference postintervention in child emotional and behavioural adjustment (SMD −0.09, 95% CI −0.58 to 0.40; P = 0.71, I2 = 64%; 5 studies, 203 participants); parenting skills (SMD 0.13, 95% CI −0.16 to 0.42; P = 0.37, I2 = 16%; 3 studies, 319 participants); and parent mindfulness (SMD 0.11, 95% CI −0.19 to 0.41; P = 0.48, I2 = 44%; 4 studies, 412 participants). There may be a slight decrease in parental depression or anxiety (SMD −0.24, 95% CI −0.83 to 0.34; P = 0.41; 1 study, 45 participants; very low certainty evidence), though we cannot exclude little to no effect, and a moderate decrease in parenting stress (SMD −0.51, 95% CI −0.84 to −0.18; P = 0.002, I2 = 2%; 3 studies, 150 participants; low certainty evidence).
The authors state:
"Mindfulness‐enhanced parenting training may improve some parent and child outcomes, with no studies reporting adverse effects. Evidence for the added value of mindfulness training to skills‐based parenting training programmes is suggestive at present, with moderate reductions in parenting stress. Given the very low to low certainty evidence reviewed here, these estimates will likely change as more high‐quality studies are produced."