Veronica C. K. CHOW, Christina S. C. FUNG, Kit-Yuen CHIU, Miu-Chi LEUNG
Abstract
Role of nurses has been changed with the increasing demand of health care from the public. With the revised mental health policy of mental health services (1995), the role of psychiatric nursing has been extended to many new areas. New initiatives of nursing care are developed in line with the comprehensive, community orientated and multidisciplinary team approached health care. A group of experienced psychiatric nurses has been developing, conducting, facilitating and evaluating a videotape modelling therapist-led parent management training programme based on the model of Webster-Stratton Programme (1988). This program was designed to help parents to manage children referred to the clinic for behaviour problems. Objectives of the program were firstly to educate parents' effective parenting skills to foster the child's compliance, to handle defiant behaviors and to reinforce positive parent-child interactions. The second objective is to promote positive perception of parents towards their children. The training program involved a series of eight videotaped modeling sessions in parenting skills. Nurses were the main therapists in the program. Nurses facilitated groups of parents during the treatment for a two-hours' session per week. Also, nurses encouraged group discussion among the parent groups during interaction and particularly parents' own ideas and problem solving techniques. Effectiveness of the program was evaluated by a self-reported questionnaire and direct observation of parent-child interaction. The evaluation measures were carried out by pre-treatment, post-treatment and 3 months follow-up assessments. In general, satisfactory feedback had been reported concerning the usefulness of the programme. This paper will discuss the evaluation of the programme, and the advance nurse practice in the provision of psycho-therapeutic intervention.
Key words: Parent child interaction assessment, Webster-Stratton programme