Efficacy of Parenting Programs to Reduce Parenting Burdens in Multicultural Families: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND: We comprehensively investigated and summarized the current situation of parenting programs for multicultural families in South Korea. METHODS: Two researchers independently searched and selected 16 studies on parenting programs for multicultural families and analyzed the major dependent variables, including parenting stress, parenting efficacy, parenting attitude, and parental satisfaction, in a meta-analysis of parenting stress and parenting efficacy (n=6 each). This study was dealt with a Bayesian meta-analysis to perform examine the effect sizes for parenting stress and parenting efficacy. Sensitivity to prior distributions was evaluated before the Bayesian meta-analysis, and an optimal prior distribution was selected based on the Watanabe–Akaike information criterion. RESULTS: The combined effect sizes for parenting stress and parenting efficacy were found to be >1 in both the frequentist and Bayesian meta-analyses, indicating that the parenting programs for multicultural families in South Korea are highly effective. CONCLUSION: These basic data can facilitate the expansion of customized social services for reducing parenting burdens in multicultural families.