The Impact of a Home Visiting Program on First-Time Parents' Parental Self-Efficacy in Norway and Associations between Parental Self-Efficacy, Depressive Symptoms and Perception of Sleep.

The study was not randomized, and districts were chosen and matched by a city department, so differences between groups may reflect other factors. Parental confidence was not measured before the intervention, so the six-week score cannot be compared with each parent's own starting point. The sample was mostly high-income, highly educated, cohabiting, native Norwegian parents, so results may not apply to more disadvantaged families. Some control mothers who stayed in the study were more educated and older than those who did not, which can bias follow-up comparisons. The parental confidence tool was not validated for Norwegian settings or for fathers. The analyses were exploratory and were not corrected for multiple testing.

The study was funded by the Research Council of Norway, and the authors declared no competing interests.

Do not conclude that the home visiting program reliably increases parental confidence for all parents. Mothers had no significant group difference, the father finding was small and absent at three months, and the nonrandomized design means the added home visits cannot be proven to be the cause.