A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Parental Management Training on Behavioral and Emotional Problems in Iranian Children

Childhood disorders have an important impact on the child, peer relationship and family relationship. Different researches indicate that the parents of these children experience higher stress because they deal with more parenting challenges.Therefore, the present research aimed to combine the results of studies conducted on the effectiveness of parent management training on children’s behavioral and emotional problems.

The method of this research is meta-analysis. The study population included the available full-text related national studies conducted from 1999 to 2017. Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 21 effect sizes were obtained from 17 studies. To analyze the data, sensitivity analysis, funnel chart, fixed and random effects models, and the heterogeneity analysis with CMA software were used.

Data analysis showed that combined effect size for the fixed effects model (model selected for this meta-analysis) was equal to 0.995 which was statistically significant (P<0.01).

The effect size obtained by parent management training on children’s behavioral and emotional problems was calculated according to large Cohen's table and results showed that parent management training was effective on children's behavioral and emotional problems.