Parental mental health has a long-lasting impact on developmental outcomes for infants and children through its impact on the family environment. Targeted parenting interventions should address both parental health and parenting skills. However, data is limited on how interventions perform in Central Asian populations.

Using routine evaluation data from n=194 participants, we modelled the effectiveness of the Mellow Babies (MB) programmes, delivered to mothers from Tajikistan and their children as part of a community support approach. Pre-post intervention changes were measured on depression, anxiety, parenting stress, quality of life, and child behaviour outcomes. Demographics were modelled as covariates.

Participation in MB was associated with improvements in maternal mental health, parenting stress, quality of life and child behaviour. Demographic factors moderated interactions between pre and post intervention outcomes, including urban/rural differences, parental employment, marital status and child disability status. Our findings suggest that MB is acceptable, effective and potentially scalable as a parenting intervention in Tajikistan. Future replication using implementation designs and replication of MB in other global settings is merited.

Rachel Tainsh and Raquib Ibrahim are employed by Mellow Parenting.

Initial delivery of Mellow Babies in Tajikistan was funded by a grant from EC and Grand Challenges Canada to HealthProm and HDO: Putting Families First: Safe sustainable families in urban and rural communities in Tajikistan. THe funder did not fund the subsequent analysis of the data or manuscript preparation.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

Ethics committee of The University of Edinburgh, School of Health in Social Science gave ethical approval for this work.

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All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors