Effects of Structural Family Therapy on Child and Maternal Mental Health Symptomatology

SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://sagepub.com

Y

10

Mental Health; Mothers; Symptoms (Individual Disorders); Family Counseling; Counseling Effectiveness; Depression (Psychology); Anxiety; Clinics; Pretests Posttests; Barriers; Counseling Techniques; Children; Child Health; Individual Characteristics; Social Work; Regression (Statistics)

Beck Anxiety Inventory; Beck Depression Inventory; Childrens Depression Inventory

10.1177/1049731512470492

1049-7315

Objective: This pilot study examined the effect of structural family therapy (SFT) on children's impairment and depressive symptomatology and mothers' depressive symptomatology and anxiety for 31 families served by a community mental health clinic. Method: A one group predesign/postdesign, with a baseline and two follow-up time points, was used. Results: A series of repeated measures analyses of variance showed significant improvement for mothers' depression, "F"(2, 36) = 6.93, "p" = 0.003, eta[superscript 2] = 0.278, and anxiety, "F"(2, 34) = 6.44, "p" = 0.004, eta[superscript 2] = 0.275. Mothers' ratings of their children's impairment significantly improved, "F"(2, 42) = 6.27, "p" = 0.005, eta[superscript 2] = 0.270, though children's self-rated impairment and depressive symptomatology did not change. Results were confirmed using random regression analyses. Conclusion: SFT has promise for simultaneously addressing mothers' and children's needs in community mental health settings. However, structural barriers impacting feasibility were identified and discussed. (Contains 3 tables.)

As Provided

98

2014

EJ1013095