Coparenting Intervention Programs: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The coparenting relationship affects parents’ and chil[1]dren’s socioemotional well-being. Thus, we reviewed evidence in the scientific literature to describe the objectives and organization of coparenting intervention programs, to examine the design of these studies and summarize evidence concerning the effectiveness of these programs. The following electronic databases were used: Bireme, Psycnet, Periódicos capes, and IndexPsi Periódicos. The review was carried out in April 2020 with no restrictions involving the date of publication. The keywords used were “coparenting”, combined with any of the following terms “training”, “intervention”, or “program”, in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Based on the study criteria 34 texts about 17 intervention programs were examined to gain in[1]formation about research design, program objectives and format, topics covered, intervention strategies, and evidence of program effectiveness. We observed that an experimental design was used in two-thirds of the studies with pretest, posttest, and follow-up evaluations. In many programs, parenting was also addressed. An array of psychoeducational intervention strategies was used to improve abilities such as emotional regulation, bidirectional communication, and joint decision making. The programs were effective in helping parents to develop a more positive coparenting relationship (for example, by increasing support and reducing conflicts) and to improve their parenting (by reducing harsh parenting behaviors), with longitudinal studies indicating the stability of these effects. These findings indicate that coparenting can be improved and that working on the coparenting relationship is an important way of strengthening the socioemotional well-being of parents and their children.