Enhancing caregiver sensitivity: Efficacy of a single-session, video-based training for new parents

Caregiving interventions are typically personalized and time intensive, creating barriers to access and use. To address these limitations, in a preregistered study of 120 first-time parents (93 mothers, 27 fathers) of 4- to 6-month-old infants, we tested the impact of a standardized, interactive, single-session video-based intervention (Teach by Example). Participants in the intervention condition (N = 60) were asked to view caregiver-child interactions and rate caregiver sensitivity, warmth, and intrusiveness, as compared to a written information condition, which instructed participants (N = 60) to read about these three caregiving behaviors. Postintervention, participants assigned to Teach by Example, compared to those in the written information condition, were coded as more sensitive and less intrusive in their caregiving during an interaction with their infant and reported lower levels of impaired affiliation with their infant and greater parental self-efficacy. Group differences in warmth were moderate and not statistically significant. Findings support the promise of Teach by Example, a single-session online intervention, for first-time parents. This scalable, low-cost approach requiring minimal resources offers a promising solution for supporting first-time parents during a critical developmental period, with potential for wide implementation as a primary prevention approach. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).