Descriptive Analysis of Intervention for Parents of Young Children Having Sleep Problems

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12174
• Published date: 01 February 2016
• Author: Arna Skúladóttir
• Date: 01 February 2016

A S Landspítali University Hospital

Descriptive Analysis of Intervention for Parents

of Young Children Having Sleep Problems

Special Issue Guest Editor’s Note: In this

article the author describes implementation

of a parent–practitioner partnership interven-

tion as a mechanism to support parents create

early care environments supportive of chil-

dren’s developmental needs. This article builds

on the article “Family Relations, Stress, and

Vulnerability: Biobehavioral Implications for

Prevention and Practice” (this issue, pp. 9–23),

by Ha and Granger. This article provides an

overview of how negative parent–children rela-

tionships affect the biological stress system and

how these psychobiological changes are related

to future mental health.

A

The aim of this qualitative study was to describe

an intervention for parents at a nurse-led clinic

for children age 6–24 months with sleeping

problems. Data were gathered from 10 families.

Intervention sessions were recorded. The nurse

also wrote eld notes and kept a reection

diary about the interventions. The data were

coded in a search for categories of meaning

and then grouped and raised to a higher level

of abstraction to describe the intervention.

Three themes were constructed. Theme 1: Shar-

ing Stories, includes establishing a working

relationship and learning about the family.

Women’s and Children’s Services, Landspítali University

Hospital, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland (arnasku@landspitali.is).

Key Words: education, empowerment, family-centered ser-

vice, infant/children sleep problem, infant development,

intervention.

Theme 2: Empowering, includes education

and motivation. Theme 3: Guidance, includes

environmental and behavioral intervention and

review plans. Empowering was the strongest

theme. Behavioral intervention had less empha-

sis than expected. Environmental intervention

was surprisingly relevant. These results can be

used to design a protocol for an experimental

study and teaching materials for professionals

who work with infant sleep problems.

In the eld of health services today, individu-

als are encouraged to be active and responsible

in their health and health care. However, studies

of practitioner–patient encounters in health care

settings suggest that in everyday practice a tra-

ditional practitioner-led interaction, rather than

the partnership model, remains (Bissell, May, &

Noyce, 2004). There is a general cost to parent-

ing advice that encourages parents to engage in

care different from that preferred (Middlemiss,

Yaure, & Huey, 2014).

When parents and practitioners work together

as a team caring for a developing child, each

brings a different knowledge base to an inter-

vention setting. Parents bring a wealth of

knowledge of family and the child when seeking

advice regarding caregiving options, whereas

the practitioner brings an understanding of best

practices and clinical knowledge (Wright &

Leahey, 2009).

In this article I report the nature of parent–

practitioner interactions during an educational

intervention program focused on helping par-

ents create healthy sleep environments for their

infants. In the process of achieving this goal,

Family Relations 65 (February 2016): 37–50 37

DOI:10.1111/fare.12174