The program was originally specifically tailored for at risk children and parents, but there are now different levels of Triple P designed to work together as a broad, universal, public health approach.
The overall goal of the program is to enhance the knowledge, skills, and confidence of parents in order to prevent behavioral, emotional, and developmental problems in children and adolescents.
One type is impact studies where the aim of the evaluation is to demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in outcomes on a population, which can be attributed to the intervention.
[9] A critical 2012 systematic review and meta-analysis of these interventions revealed many small, underpowered and poorly-controlled studies, with substantial risk of reporting bias,[10] triggering a response from a group including many Triple-P authors.
[11] Another commentary in the same journal[12] claimed the response did not adequately address the critique and indicated that commitments to such programmes by policy-makers needs to be based on sound evidence, or risks wasting money.