Trial reportPsychological medicine2019
The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management programme in primary school children: results of the STARS cluster randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in Psychological medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- What is the impact of structural and cultural factors and interventions within educational settings on promoting positive mental health and preventing poor mental health: a systematic review.BMC public health · 2022Pooled it
- Characteristics and practices of school-based cluster randomised controlled trials for improving health outcomes in pupils in the United Kingdom: a methodological systematic review.BMC medical research methodology · 2021Pooled it
- 'Pilot RCT of a new treatment for child conduct problems that have not responded to evidence-based parent training'.PloS one · 2026Trial
- An intervention to improve teacher well-being support and training to support students in UK high schools (the WISE study): A cluster randomised controlled trial.PLoS medicine · 2021Trial
- Food environment intervention improves food knowledge, wellbeing and dietary habits in primary school children: Project Daire, a randomised-controlled, factorial design cluster trial.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2021Trial
- Cost-effectiveness analysis of parenting interventions for the prevention of behaviour problems in children.PloS one · 2019Trial
- Article
- Public health interventions aimed at children aged 5-19 years funded by local authorities in England: a scoping review of economic analyses.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Teacher-Delivered Mental Health Interventions: Promises, Challenges, and Recommendations for Future Directions.Administration and policy in mental health · 2025Article
- Article
- Association of classroom-level stressors with psychological distress in teachers.Occupational medicine (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Patterns of intra-cluster correlation coefficients in school-based cluster randomised controlled trials of interventions for improving social-emotional functioning outcomes in pupils: a secondary data analysis of five UK-based studies.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Programme - A Latent Profile Approach.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2024Article
- Is neighbourhood deprivation in primary school-aged children associated with their mental health and does this association change over 30 months?European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Article
- Oppositional defiant disorder.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2023Review
- Article
- Review
- Article
- Teachers' views on the acceptability and implementation of the Incredible YearsThe British journal of educational psychology · 2022Article
- Identifying Child Anxiety Through Schools-identification to intervention (iCATS-i2i): protocol for single-arm feasibility trial.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundWe evaluated the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management (TCM) programme as a universal intervention, given schools' important influence on child mental health.
methodsA two-arm, pragmatic, parallel group, superiority, cluster randomised controlled trial recruited three cohorts of schools (clusters) between 2012 and 2014, randomising them to TCM (intervention) or Teaching As Usual (TAU-control). TCM was delivered to teachers in six whole-day sessions, spread over 6 months. Schools and teachers were not masked to allocation. The primary outcome was teacher-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) Total Difficulties score. Random effects linear regression and marginal logistic regression models using Generalised Estimating Equations were used to analyse the outcomes.
trial registrationISRCTN84130388.
resultsEighty schools (2075 children) were enrolled; 40 (1037 children) to TCM and 40 (1038 children) to TAU. Outcome data were collected at 9, 18, and 30-months for 96, 89, and 85% of children, respectively. The intervention reduced the SDQ-Total Difficulties score at 9 months (mean (s.d.):5.5 (5.4) in TCM v. 6.2 (6.2) in TAU; adjusted mean difference = -1.0; 95% CI-1.9 to -0.1; p = 0.03) but this did not persist at 18 or 30 months. Cost-effectiveness analysis suggested that TCM may be cost-effective compared with TAU at 30-months, but this result was associated with uncertainty so no firm conclusions can be drawn. A priori subgroup analyses suggested TCM is more effective for children with poor mental health.
conclusionsTCM provided a small, short-term improvement to children's mental health particularly for children who are already struggling.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.