The efficacy of interventions designed for parents of children with developmental disabilities in Türkiye: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Previous studies have revealed that parents of children with developmental disabilities (DD) experience various mental health problems. The number of intervention studies has increased for parents of children with DD to reduce symptoms of mental health conditions and increase positive functioning in recent years in Türkiye. The main purpose of this systematic and meta-analytical review is to address the efficacy of interventions for parents of children with DD on symptoms of mental health conditions and positive functioning in Türkiye. The second purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the potential moderators on the efficacy of the interventions in symptoms of mental health conditions and positive functioning. For these purposes, studies published between 2000 and October 2022 were searched in various databases. As a result of the literature search, 61 studies met the inclusion criteria, and 23 studies with 17 independent effect sizes for symptoms of mental health conditions and 12 independent effect sizes for positive functioning were included in the current study. Cohen’s d effect size index was used to calculate the efficacy of intervention studies included in the meta-analysis on symptoms of mental health conditions and positive functioning. Results revealed that the overall mean effect size for the 17 mental health studies was −1.15 and for the 12 positive functioning studies was 2.03 in favor of experimental group. Moderator analyses showed that the study design (experimental vs. quasi-experimental) was a statistically significant moderator of positive functioning. The average effect size for experimental studies was higher than that of quasi-experimental studies. However, other moderators (the gender of the participants, publication type, the type of intervention, the disability type of children, the sample size, and the number of sessions) were not statistically significant for symptoms of mental health conditions and positive functioning. Although the current study has some limitations, the findings revealed that the interventions designed for parents of children with DD result in an increase in positive functioning and a reduction in symptoms of mental health conditions in favor of experimental group.