JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

It is well recognized that parents of children with developmental disabilities can experience considerable burden of care associated with their child’s disability, which can potentially impact their functioning and quality of life. Historically, the intervention efforts in paediatric rehabilitation have focused primarily on the child’s development and wellbeing and much less on parental and family wellbeing. The impact that a child’s diagnosis might have on parents remains unclear, and it is unknown how we can best support parents on their journey of childhood disability. It is, therefore, important to synthesize the published evidence on interventions for parents of children with developmental disabilities so that clinicians can be better informed about the ways in which families they work with can be supported.

Objective:

This manuscript presents the protocol for a systematic review of the effectiveness of interventions aiming to improve physical, psychological or socio-economic wellbeing for parents of children with developmental disabilities when compared to usual care or no care.

Methods:

We will systematically search four databases (Medline, Embase, PsychINFO and CINAHL) from 2000 until the search date, for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated the effectiveness of interventions to improve parental physical, psychological or socio-economic wellbeing. Two authors will independently screen the titles and abstracts, which will then be followed by full-text screening. After the eligibility assessment, two reviewers will independently extract data and conduct a risk of bias assessment using the Cochrane Risk-of-Bias (RoB 2) tool. We will assess the quality of evidence using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. If data allows, we will perform a pair-wise meta-analysis or network meta-analysis. We plan to evaluate the coherence of the network with a global test by using the node-splitting method.

Results:

This protocol has been registered with PROSPERO (ID: CRD42021230706). The results from this systematic review will be published in an indexed journal within a year after the publication of this protocol.

Conclusions:

This study is expected to identify a variety of programs to address the wellbeing needs of parents of children with developmental disabilities and provide directions on how parents can best be supported within healthcare. Such interventions might help professionals and stakeholders in creating service delivery models that can enhance parental wellbeing and minimize the risks on their physical, psychological and socio-economic functioning. Clinical Trial: PROSPERO (ID: CRD42021230706)