Let´s Talk about Children

Summary

Introduction

The Let’s talk about children discussion supports the wellbeing and development of children and adolescents. The intervention is suitable for use by expectant parents and parents of children and adolescents aged 0–18. The intervention provides a structure for a goal-oriented, voluntary discussion between parents and a professional about the child’s situation in different environments. The purpose is to support parenting and child development, assess the situation, and refer families to other services, if necessary. The aim is to prevent the accumulation of problems, reduce children’s mental health risk factors, and strengthen families’ resilience in situations of change.

Objective and research question

This systematic literature review assesses the effectiveness of the Let’s talk about children discussion on the basis of research literature. The review answers the following research questions: How accurately has the Let’s talk about children discussion been described? Does the Let’s talk about children discussion have evidence-based effectiveness, applicable to Finland, in the development and wellbeing of children and adolescents?

Data and research methods

A systematic literature search was carried out using the PCC search strategy (Population, Concept, Context), which focused on the question: What research has been done on the Let’s talk about children discussion? The following keywords were used: P = children of pre-school and primary school age, adolescents, parents, families, C = Let’s talk about children discussion. Context (C) was omitted to avoid an excessive restriction of the results of the search. The primary area of interest in the search was effectiveness studies carried out on the intervention. A systematic literature search was carried out for the following six reference databases: MEDLINE, APA PsycInfo, CINAHL, ERIC, Web of Science and Scopus. In addition, a search for publications in Finnish was performed on the Finna.fi service, and the search was supplemented by a manual search.

Results

The Let’s talk about children discussion is a well-described intervention with good implementation support in Finland.  Based on the literature search, six World Bank effectiveness studies from high-income countries were selected for the methodology evaluation, three of which were Finnish randomized controlled trials and one a Swedish quasi-experimental comparative study. The quality of the studies varied from poor to satisfactory. The Finnish studies have compared the Let’s talk about children discussion with the longer and more resource-intensive Effective Child and Family intervention. When the Let’s talk about children discussion was carried out as part of the parent’s other care, it promoted the wellbeing of children and adolescents as effectively as a longer family-based intervention.  In the Swedish quasi-experimental study, the discussion has been compared not only to family-based interventions but also to standard specialised psychiatric care. According to the results of that study, the Let’s talk about children discussion helped prevent mental health symptoms in children aged 8–17 years whose parents have been diagnosed with mental or anxiety disorder (p < 0.05; d = -0.88).

Methodology evaluation

Some effectiveness studies have been carried out on the well-described and theoretically sound Let’s talk about children discussion. Evidence of effectiveness has been obtained that when Let’s talk about children discussions are carried out as part of the parent’s other psychiatric care, this improves the psychosocial wellbeing of children aged 8–17 years compared to conventional care.