An evaluation of the online universal programme COPING parent: A feasibility study.

<em>Background</em>: COPING parent (Confident Parent Internet Guide) is an online universal parenting programme designed for parents of children aged 3-8 who are interested in learning positive parenting strategies to address everyday parenting challenges. Most people now have access to the internet and many parents seek online parenting advice, so it is important to ensure that advice is both evidence-based and freely available. The 10-week online COPING parent programme presents information and activities based on core social learning theory principles. The programme provides information and video examples of parenting skills, uses quizzes to test knowledge and suggests home practice activities. This study was undertaken to obtain feedback on the usefulness and acceptability of the programme to inform its further development. <br /><em>Design and Methods:</em> The programme was created using the LifeGuide software and participants (n=20) were asked to complete one chapter of the programme each week and provide feedback. This feasibility study was undertaken to highlight any technical issues and suggest modifications prior to a more rigorous evaluation. <br /><em>Results:</em> Both participant feedback and programme usage data are reported. Thirteen feedback forms were returned and programme usage data was downloaded for all participants. Feedback suggested modifications that included adaptations to enable the programme to be accessed by tablet users, an option to look back over previously completed chapters, the inclusion of more video examples of positive parenting and text message prompting to address attrition challenges

Web-based parenting support:Development of the COPING Confident Parenting programme

Parents have the most significant impact on children&rsquo;s development and the key parenting factors that promote child development and wellbeing are well known. Furthermore, many behavioural, social and emotional problems in children are associated with poor parenting practices. Parenting interventions that address parental skill deficits and teach positive parenting principles based on social learning theory are effective and are the recommended treatment for conduct disorder. Alongside the development of treatment programmes, universal parenting programmes have been developed; many present the same core parenting principles but their rationales vary from promoting children&rsquo;s development to addressing common behavioural challenges and the evidence for these programmes is less well established. Most parents now have internet access and are making daily use of it, including seeking advice on parenting matters but that advice is often anecdotal and lacking evidence. In the meantime, a small number of web-based programmes, including parenting programmes have been developed and evaluated. This paper summarises the rationale for web-based universal programmes to support parents and briefly describes the history, content and a summary of the initial research on the COPING (confident parent internet guide) programme developed by the authors. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research directions

Religious Art: two cases of Iconography

For a conspectus of religious art in Australia one need only look into Sister Rosemary Crumlin's Images of Religion in Australian Art which must be for a considerable time to come the definitive text. For news about religious art in Australia one looks about, for confirmation or denial of the rumours that the Blake Prize for religious art - founded in 1951 - is to become extinct.Asked for a short note on religious art in Australia we decided not to attempt a summary of the current scene but to take two cases. There are cases from different thought systems, art systems, and iconographic systems: and their mutual relationship will be, necessarily problematic

Parenting for Autism, Language, And Communication Evaluation Study (PALACES): protocol for a pilot randomised controlled trial

Introduction Children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) often have associated behavioural difficulties that can present a challenge for parents and parenting. There are several effective social learning theory-based parenting programmes for dealing with behavioural difficulties, including the Incredible Years (IY) parent programmes. However, these programmes typically do not specifically target parents of children with ASD. Recently, a new addition to the IY suite of programmes known as the IY Autistic Spectrum and Language Delays (IY-ASLD) parent programme was developed. The main aims of the present study are to examine the feasibility of delivering this programme within child health services and to provide initial evidence for effectiveness and economic costs. Methods and analysis The Parenting for Autism, Language, And Communication Evaluation Study (PALACES) trial is a pragmatic, multicentre, pilot randomised controlled trial comparing the IY-ASLD programme with a wait-list control condition. 72 parents of children with ASD (aged 3–8 years) will be randomly allocated to either the intervention or control condition. Data will be collected prior to randomisation and 6 months postrandomisation for all families. Families in the intervention condition only will also be followed up at 12 and 18 months postrandomisation. This study will provide initial evidence of effectiveness for the newly developed IY-ASLD parenting programme. It will also add to the limited economic evidence for an intervention targeting parents of children with ASD and provide longer term data, an important component for evaluations of parenting programmes. Ethics and dissemination Approval for the study was granted by the Research Ethics Committee at the School of Psychology, Bangor University (reference number: 2016–15768) and the North Wales Research Ethics Committee, UK (reference number: 16/WA/0224). The findings will be disseminated through research conferences and peer-reviewed journals

Evaluation of modernisation of adult critical care services in England: time series and cost effectiveness analysis

Objective To evaluate the impact and cost effectiveness of a programme to transform adult critical care throughout England initiated in late 2000

Population-level susceptibility, severity and spread of pandemic influenza: design of, and initial results from, a pre-pandemic and hibernating pandemic phase study using cross-sectional data from the Health Survey for England (HSE)

Background Assessing severity and spread of a novel influenza strain at the start of a pandemic is critical for informing a targeted and proportional response. It requires community-level studies to estimate the burden of infection and disease. Rapidly initiating such studies in a pandemic is difficult. The study aims to establish an efficient system allowing real-time assessment of population susceptibility, spread of infection and clinical attack rates in the event of a pandemic. Methods We developed and appended additional survey questions and specimen collection to the Health Survey for England (HSE) – a large, annual, rolling nationally representative general population survey recruiting throughout the year – to enable rapid population-based surveys of influenza infection and disease during a pandemic. Using these surveys we can assess the spread of the virus geographically, by age and through time. The data generated can also provide denominators for national estimates of case fatality and hospitalisation rates.Phase 1: we compared retrospectively collected HSE illness rates during the first two infection waves of the 2009 pandemic with the Flu Watch study (a prospective community cohort). Monthly and seasonal age-specific rates of illness and proportion vaccinated were compared.Phase 2: we piloted blood specimen and data collection alongside the 2012–13 HSE. We are developing laboratory methods and protocols for real-time serological assays of a novel pandemic influenza virus using these specimens, and automated programmes for analysing and reporting illness and infection rates.Phase 3: during inter-pandemic years, the study enters a holding phase, where it is included in the yearly HSE ethics application and planning procedures, allowing rapid triggering in a pandemic.Phase 4: once retriggered, the study will utilise the methods developed in phase 2 to monitor the severity and spread of the pandemic in real time. Results Phase 1: the rates of reported illness during the first two waves in the HSE underestimated the community burden as measured by Flu Watch, but the patterns of illness by age and time were broadly comparable. The extent of underestimation was greatest for HSE participants interviewed later in the year compared with those interviewed closer to the pandemic. Vaccine uptake in the HSE study was comparable to independent national estimates and the Flu Watch study.Phases 2 and 3: illness data and serological samples from 2018 participants were collected in the 2012–13 HSE and transferred to the University College London Hospital. In the 2013 HSE and onwards, this project was included in the annual HSE ethics and planning rounds. Conclusions The HSE’s underestimation of illness rates during the first two waves of the pandemic is probably due to recall bias and the limitation of being able to report only one illness when multiple illnesses per season can occur. Changes to the illness questions (reporting only recent illnesses) should help minimise these issues. Additional prospective follow-up could improve measurement of disease incidence. The representative nature of the HSE allows accurate measurements of vaccine uptake. Study registration This study is registered as ISRCTN80214280. Funding This project was funded by the NIHR Public Health Research programme and will be published in full inPublic Health Research; Vol. 3, No. 6. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information