Effectiveness of the integration of education, care and medicine (IECM) program on knowledge of parenting strategies for parents of infants and toddlers

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Integration of Education, Care and Medicine (IECM), an intervention program designed for parents of children aged from birth to three years old. A total of 218 Chinese parents participated, comprising both an intervention group (n = 102) and a control group (n = 116). The measure used was the Knowledge of Parenting Strategies for Infants and Toddlers (KPS-IT) scale to assess parenting knowledge across six domains of young child development. The results demonstrate that the IECM had positive effects on parenting knowledge, with domain-specific variations in improvement magnitude: The motor development domain exhibited the most pronounced gains, followed by the disease prevention domain, while the social-emotional development domain showed the least improvement. Additionally, parental education and child's age were found to have a significant impact on the intervention outcome. The findings reveal that the IECM program provides particularly significant benefit for parents of children aged 0–1 years old and those with lower levels of educational attainment.