A Hybrid Implementation-Effectiveness Pilot Trial of Episodic Future Thinking for Mothers from a Low-Resource Community

Background Parents from low-resource communities are more likely to engage in harsh parenting practices and less likely to benefit from behavioral parent training programs. Poverty may influence parenting by shaping decision-making and increasing a tendency to focus on meeting immediate needs at the expense of long-term planning. In the context of parenting, parents may be more likely to use harsher discipline strategies to elicit immediate compliance (such as spanking and yelling) and less likely to utilize behavioral parenting approaches (such as time-out) that require tolerating immediate distress to shape future behavior.Objective The current study examined the implementation potential and preliminary effectiveness of an adapted evidence-based intervention, episodic future thinking, to increase parents’ time horizon and reduce harsh parenting.Method Mothers of children aged 5–10 (n = 24) from a low-resource area were recruited to take part in the intervention delivered by a peer parent from the same community. Participants completed an assessment battery, including measures of time horizon and parenting behaviors, and key informant interviews regarding their experiences in the program.Results Results suggest the intervention was feasible and could be implemented by peer parents with high levels of fidelity. Mothers reported that they found it acceptable and appropriate, noting perceived improvements in their parenting following the intervention. Additionally, paired-samples t-tests suggest that changes in delay discounting (but not parents’ consideration of future consequences) were found following the intervention. Parents also reported increases in parent involvement and decreases in poor parental monitoring, inconsistent parenting, and corporal punishment. Finally, parents reported decreases in their child’s difficult behaviors.Conclusions Results suggest that an adapted episodic future thinking intervention, delivered by a peer-parent, is feasible, acceptable, and appropriate. Moreover, initial clinical findings suggest that promise for utilizing this approach to improve parenting outcomes among families from low-resource communities.