Nurse visits left modest improvements at age five
At age five, behavior and parenting improved slightly. The main analysis found no language advantage, although small signals appeared among complete cases.
The key idea
At age five, home visits left small differences in behavior and parenting, but not in direct language and learning tests.
The study, in plain language
The support program, called right@home, began home visits during pregnancy and continued until the child turned two. It was offered to Australian families facing several adversity factors, in addition to usual health services. Follow-up revisited those families when the children were four and five.
At age five, some child-behavior measures modestly favored the program. There were also small differences in parenting warmth and mothers’ confidence in their parenting. In the main analysis, which adjusted for missing data, direct language and learning tests showed no advantage. A complete-case analysis found small favorable signals on some language measures, so the result also depends on how missing data were handled.
What they found
- The visits supported families from pregnancy until the child turned two.
- For five-year-olds, some behavior and parenting measures modestly favored the program.
- In the main analysis, direct language and learning tests showed no advantage. Small signals appeared on some language measures among complete cases.
How they studied it
The four- and five-year follow-up returned to an Australian trial that randomly assigned 722 pregnant women with at least two adversity factors. One group was offered nurse visits alongside universal services, with 25 visits from pregnancy until the child was two. The other received usual services alone.
What the study cannot show
- A substantial proportion of families were lost to follow-up.
- Effects were modest, and many outcomes were measured.
- The study does not identify which part of the program produced the differences.
Something to think about
Early support can show up in some areas but not others: here, parenting and behavior changed somewhat, but test scores did not. Which part of family life do you think is most important to measure?
The original study
Nurse home visiting to improve child and maternal outcomes: 5-year follow-up of an Australian randomised controlled trial
Source under CC BY 4.0. English adaptation and explanation by PaperFlow, with AI assistance. The text has been reorganized for a general audience; it is not the complete paper and does not imply endorsement by its authors.
One study alone does not represent a field's consensus. Educational content does not replace professional advice. Report a possible error.
