Objective:

This review will evaluate the effectiveness of different health delivery agents of parenting stimulation interventions versus usual care, no intervention, or a different type of delivery agent on child development outcomes among children aged 0 to 36 months.

Introduction:

Stimulation interventions vary in terms of implementation. While some interventions are delivered by professionals, most are delivered by non-professionals. Several prior systematic reviews on this topic have been conducted; however, no known study has evaluated the effectiveness of stimulation interventions on child development by type of delivery agent.

Inclusion criteria:

This review will consider randomized controlled trials assessing parenting stimulation interventions delivered by different health delivery agents. These will be compared to usual care, no intervention, or a different delivery agent, targeted at caregiver-child dyads of children aged 0 to 36 months. The outcomes will include motor, language, cognitive, and socio-emotional development. The review will exclude studies including children with specific characteristics, interventions that do not focus on parenting, and protocols of randomized clinical trials.

Methods:

The review will include both published and unpublished studies.

The key information sources to be searched are:

MEDLINE, APA (PsycNet), Embase, Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, CINAHL, VHL Regional Portal, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Theses Canada Portal, and Library and Archives Canada. Studies in English, Spanish, and Portuguese will be included. Critical appraisal and data extraction will be conducted using standardized tools. Quantitative data, where possible, will be pooled in statistical meta-analysis, or if statistical pooling is not possible, the findings will be reported narratively.