Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C. P., Pruett, M. K., Pruett, K., & Wong, J. (2009). Promoting fathers' engagement with children: Preventive interventions for low-income families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 71(3), 663–679. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2009.00625.x

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 371 couples

Population:

• Age — Not specified
• Race/Ethnicity — 67% Mexican American, 27% European American, and 6% Other
• Gender — 50% Male and 50% Female
• Status — Participants were families with the youngest child between 0–7 years of age who were recruited through Family Resource Centers, other county service agencies, and community events.

Location/Institution: California

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to determine the efficacy of the Supporting Father Involvement Program (SFI) in regards to improving father engagement in childrearing. Participants were randomly assigned to a 16-week group for fathers (SFI), 16-week group for couples, or a 1-time informational meeting. Measures utilized include the Parenting Stress Inventory (PSI), the Ideas About Parenting Questionnaire, the Quality of Marriage Index, and the Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory. Results indicate that compared with families in the low-dose comparison condition, intervention families showed positive effects on fathers’ engagement with their children, couple relationship quality, and children’s problem behaviors. Participants in couples’ groups showed more consistent, longer term positive effects than those in fathers-only groups. Intervention effects were similar across family structures, income levels, and ethnicities. Limitations include reliance on self-reported measures and use of a screened convenience sample.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: 11 months.

Cowan, C. P., Cowan, P. A., & Barry, J. (2011). Couples' groups for parents of preschoolers: Ten-year outcomes of a randomized trial. Journal of Family Psychology, 25(2), 240–250. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023003

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 100 couples

Population:

• Age — Fathers: Mean=37 years, Mothers: Mean=36 years
• Race/Ethnicity — 84% European American, 7% Asian American, 6.6% African American, and 2.5% Hispanic
• Gender — Not specified
• Status — Participants were two-parent families living in the San Francisco Bay Area raising a first child who would enter kindergarten the next fall.

Location/Institution: San Francisco Bay Area

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to report the results of a 10-year follow-up of two variations of a couples’ group preventive intervention offered to couples in the year before their oldest child made the transition to kindergarten. Participants were randomly assigned to (1) a low-dose control condition, (2) a couples’ group meeting for 16 weeks that focused more on couple relationship issues among other family topics [now called Supporting Father Involvement (SFI)], or (3) a couples’ group meeting for 16 weeks that focused more on parenting issues among other family issues, with an identical curriculum to condition (2). This paper examined intervention effects extending from the children’s transition to kindergarten to the transition to high school — ten years after the couples’ groups ended. Measures included the Short Marital Adjustment Test, the Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory (CABI), and observational measures of couple communication and parenting style. Results indicate that there were 6-year positive effects of the pre-Kindergarten interventions on observed couple interaction and 10-year positive effects on both parents’ marital satisfaction and the children’s adaptation (hyperactivity and aggression). From pretest to 4th grade, couples in the SFI group improved markedly in their communication quality, with declining negative and increasing positive communication in their problem-solving discussions and co-parenting interactions. Mothers and fathers in the SFI group were more likely to maintain their marital satisfaction over 10 years as compared with controls. Limitations include the relatively low-risk nature of the sample, the small sample size, and methodological shifts in the measures over time to make them more appropriate to the child’s developmental level.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: 10 years (during the child’s 9th grade year).

Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C. P., Pruett, M. K., Pruett, K., & Gillette, P. (2014). Evaluating a couples group to enhance father involvement in low‐income families using a benchmark comparison. Family Relations, 63(3), 356–370. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12072

Type of Study: Pretest–posttest study with a nonequivalent control group (Quasi-experimental)
Number of Participants: 236 couples

Population:

• Age — Not specified
• Race/Ethnicity — 50% Mexican American, 31% European American, 11% African American, 5% Asian American, and 5% Mixed Race
• Gender — 50% Male and 50% Female
• Status — Participants were families with the youngest child between 0–11 years of age who were recruited through Family Resource Centers, other county service agencies, and community events.

Location/Institution: California

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of the Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) program. Participants were a 16-week SFI couples’ group compared to benchmark couples from the Cowan et al. (2009) study. Measures utilized include the PIE, the Who Does What? Questionnaire, the Parenting Stress Index, the Ideas About Parenting Questionnaire, the Quality of Marriage Index, the Couple Communication Questionnaire, and the Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory. Results indicate that father involvement increased for current (SFI) couples group participants, though not as much as for benchmark couples group participants; they showed statistically similar positive changes on 6 measures (decline in parenting stress, stability in couple relationship satisfaction, children's hyperactivity, social withdrawal, psychological symptoms, increased income). Limitations include nonrandomization of subjects, reliance on self-reported measures, and concerns about the comparison group given the differences between the two samples.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: Approximately 13 months.

Pruett, M. K., Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C. D., Gillett, P., & Pruett, K. (2019). Supporting Father Involvement: An intervention with community and child welfare referred couples. Family Relations, 68(1), 51–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12352

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 239 couples

Population:

• Age — Parents: 18–71 years; Children: 1 month–12 years (Median=2 years 11 months)
• Race/Ethnicity — Parents: 52% Hispanic (mostly Mexican–American), 34% European–American, 7% Other, 3% African–American, and 1% Asian or Pacific Islander; Children: Not specified
• Gender — Parents: 50% Male and 50% Female, Children: Not specified
• Status — Participants were referred from the child welfare system and were not currently believed to be at current risk for harming their partner or child.

Location/Institution: Family Resource Centers in five California counties

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to expand the evidence base of the Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) intervention to include child welfare families. Participants were randomly assignment to a couples’ group that would begin immediately, or to a waitlist for a group that would begin in 6 months. Measures utilized include the Who Does What? Questionnaire, the Parenting Stress Index, the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAPI), the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ), and the Couple Communication Questionnaire. Results indicate that SFI reduced couple conflict, which reduced anxious and harsh parenting, leading to better child outcomes. SFI was equally effective for community and child-welfare-referred families and family dynamics pathways were similar across conditions. Limitations include high attrition, reliance on self-reported measures, and that waitlist-control did not provide an optimal randomized test of the intervention effect at Post 2 because 44% of the parents in that condition went on to participate in the intervention when it was offered 6 months after baseline.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: 2 months and 14 months (no untreated control group at the 14-month follow-up).

Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C. P., Pruett, M. K., & Pruett, K. (2019). Fathers' and mothers' attachment styles, couple conflict, parenting quality, and children's behavior problems: An intervention test of mediation. Attachment & Human Development, 21(5), 532–550. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2019.1582600

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 239 couples

Population:

• Age — Children: 1 month–12 years (Median=2 years and 11 months); Fathers: 18–71 years, Median=31.5 years; Mothers: 17–66 years, Median=29.2 years
• Race/Ethnicity — Fathers: 53% Hispanic, 31% European American, 9% African American, 4% “a combination,” 2% Other, and 1% AAPI; Mothers: 50% Hispanic, 36% European American, 7% African American, 3% “a combination,” 3% Other, and 1% AAPI
• Gender — Not specified
• Status — Participants were a diverse sample of primarily low-income couples.

Location/Institution: Five California counties – one urban, the other four primarily agricultural, all low-income communities

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
This study used the sample from Pruett et al. (2019). The purpose of the study was to examine the Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) program as it relates to the value of adding measures of fathers’ attachment style and parenting to mothers’ measures in order to explain variations in children’s behavior problems. Participants were randomly assigned to either immediate SFI treatment or waitlist control condition (6-month delay). Measures utilized include the Couple Communication Questionnaire, the Adult Attachment Scale (AAS), the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the Center for Epidemiological Studies in Depression Scale (CES-D), the Parenting Stress Index (PSI), the Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory, and the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ). Results indicate fathers’ attachment security and parenting behavior added significantly to mothers’ in accounting for children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Fathers’ anxious attachment style and anxiety/depression mediated the link between postintervention reductions in parental conflict and anxious/harsh parenting. For mothers, only improvements in attachment security accounted for those links. Limitations include data concerning children and parents came from parent self-reports, the lack of an untreated control group at the 1-year-2-month follow-up, and concerns about generalizability due to economic status.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: 2 months and 14 months (no untreated control group at the 14-month follow-up).