parental self-efficacy as a determining factor in healthy mother-child interaction: a pilot study in iran

objective: parental self-efficacy is associated with increasing mental health in children. there is a paucity of research in iran on the role of parental self-efficacy in increasing mental health status of children. in this preliminary study, we studied the effectiveness of the world health organization international child development program (2002) for children aged 3 years and younger in increasing positive interaction between child and mother as an important component of mental health. methods: forty mothers from a central hospital child-caring center in mashhad participated in the study and were randomly divided into an experimental group (n = 20) and a control group (n = 20). the experimental group received the world health organization international child development program for 6 consecutive weeks while the control group remained without manipulation. the parenting self-agency measure (psam) was administered at pre-test, post-test and at 1-month follow-up. results: the study findings indicated that parental efficacy in the experimental group increased after 6 consecutive weeks of training and remained unchanged after 1 month of follow-up while the control group showed no difference regarding scores obtained at three stages of the study. conclusion: international programs such as the world health organization international child development program can increase positive child-mother interaction as an important factor which contributes to mental health in early years of life but further studies with larger samples in longer terms and with more follow-up periods in iran are suggested.