A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial of Video-Feedback Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting (ViPP) for parents experiencing difficulties consistent with Personality Disorder: What are the Effects on Sensitive and Non-intrusive Parenting?

Personality Disorder (PD) is characterised by enduring difficulties with emotion regulation and interpersonal relationships. Some parents living with PD can experience particular difficulties parenting their children and may struggle to respond to their children in sensitive and non-intrusive ways, potentially due to their increased risk of past trauma and insecure attachment. This can have a negative impact on the parent-child relationship and children with parents with PD are more likely to experience negative outcomes, such as increased psychopathology throughout the life span. Therefore, it is important that parents with PD are supported at an early stage, particularly with parenting behaviours of sensitivity and non-intrusiveness, in order to support the best outcomes for their children. This small-scale Randomised Control Trial (RCT) used a two-arm design where one group received Video-Feedback Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting (VIPP; n=20), an attachment-based intervention that targets parental sensitivity and non-intrusiveness in infancy, and the other received Treatment as Usual (TAU; n=14). Video data of the parent-child relationship was recorded at baseline, post-intervention and at three-month follow up. This video data was coded for parental sensitivity and non-intrusiveness using the Emotional Availability Scales. Results indicated that parental sensitivity improved in the VIPP condition when compared to TAU. Results for parental non-intrusiveness were less clear. Clinical implications have been discussed, including recommending that a full-scale RCT trial is undertaken to further evaluate the effectiveness of VIPP with parents with PD