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Peruvian children's sub-optimal results on international and national assessments underscore the need for enhanced investments in early childhood development (ECD) such as shared reading between caregivers and young children. We conducted a qualitative study with 13 mothers of young children ages 11–25 months old that: used focus groups to explore caregivers' perspectives and experiences related to their daily activities, including reading and other ECD activities, with their young children; and used focus groups and video recordings to describe caregivers' experiences reading with these children during an at-home opportunity for shared reading. The mothers described daily schedules that focused on taking care of their daily chores and making sure that their young children were busy as they carried out those tasks. The mothers reported that they did not designate dedicated time to spend with their children, and children were often without adult attention for lengthy periods of time. We found that after the 1-month at-home opportunity for shared reading, there was a definite positive shift in both mothers' engagement with their children and their perspectives on reading. The caregivers improved their daily interactions with their children and observed important changes in their children thanks to reading. This study is encouraging and justifies a follow up randomized controlled trial to implement and evaluate the LIBRE shared reading program in Lima, Peru. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Mental disorders are a major contributor to the global burden of disease and disability, and can be extremely costly at both individual and community level. Social capital, (SC) defined as an individual's social relationships and participation in community networks, may lower the risk of mental disorders while increasing resilience capacity, adaptation and recovery. SC interventions may be a cost-effective way of preventing and ameliorating these conditions. However, the impact of these SC interventions on mental health still needs research.Methods: We conducted a systematic review of SC-based interventions to investigate their effect on mental health outcomes from controlled, quasi-experimental studies or pilot trials. We searched twelve academic databases, three clinical trials registries, hand-searched references and contacted field experts. Studies' quality was assessed with the Cochrane Risk of Bias tools for randomized and non-randomized studies.Results: Seven studies were included in the review, published between 2006 and 2016. There was substantial heterogeneity in the definitions of both SC and mental disorders among the studies, preventing us from calculating pooled effect sizes. The interventions included community engagement and educative programs, cognitive processing therapy and sociotherapy for trauma survivors, and neighbourhood projects.Conclusions: There are paucity of SC interventions investigating the effect on mental health outcomes. This study showed that both SC scores and mental health outcomes improved over time but there was little evidence of benefit compared to control groups in the long term. Further high-quality trials are needed, especially among adverse populations to assess sustainability of effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]