Wirksamkeit von aufsuchenden Frühen Hilfen. Ergebnisse eines systematischen Reviews der internationalen Forschungsliteratur.

Abstract

Efficacy of Home-Visiting Programs in Early Childhood. Results from a Systematic Review of the International Research Literature Early childhood home-visiting programs are tried and tested for families in need of support. Little is known about its efficacy in Germany due to a lack of research activity. The aim of a systematic review was to compile the international research literature on the efficacy of homevisiting programs. From a pre-selection of 215 studies, 5 meta-analyses, 11 systematic reviews, 39 experimental studies, and 18 non-controlled longitudinal studies were evaluated and presented in detail. As a result, home-visiting program approaches were found to be robustly efficacious in preventing child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, and promoting age-appropriate child development, safe home environments, and appropriate parenting behaviors. The effects on behavioral problems in children, the promotion of parent-child interaction as well as social support in parents are promising, thus direct (proximal) factors of parenting behaviors. In contrast, the findings on health in children and mothers are uncertain and contradictory. The findings were differentiated according to outcome criteria, and programs, weighted according to evidence, and impact-promoting aspects. In early childhood, selective and targeted home-visiting programs appear to be more efficacious than universal approaches. The relevance and transferability of the results to home-visiting programs in Germany are discussed.