Behavioral Couples Treatment for Substance Use Disorder: Secondary Effects on the Reduction of Risk for Child Abuse

Abstract

Risk for child abuse was examined prior to and after Behavioral Couples Treatment (BCT) among 61 couples in which one or both parents were diagnosed with substance use disorder (SUD). All couples were residing with one or more school-age children. Mothers and fathers completed pretreatment, post-intervention, and 6-month post-intervention follow-up assessments. Results of piecewise latent growth models tested whether the number of BCT sessions attended and number of days abstinent from drugs and alcohol influenced relationship satisfaction and its growth over time, and in turn if relationship satisfaction and change in relationship satisfaction influenced risk for child abuse. For both mothers and fathers, attending more BCT sessions lead to a direct increase in relationship satisfaction, which in turn led to stronger reductions in risk for child abuse. This effect was maintained from the post-intervention though the 6-month post-intervention follow-up. For fathers, number of days abstinent significantly influenced reduction in child abuse potential at post-intervention via relationship satisfaction. This indirect effect was not present for mothers. The overall benefits of BCT on mothers’ and fathers’ risk for child abuse suggest that BCT may have promise in reducing risk for child abuse among couples in which one or both parents have SUD.

Efficacy of a university offered mindfulness training on perceived stress

“…Within our LGM, parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation, and missing data were handled using full information maximum likelihood. Although sample sizes of 100 are preferred for growth models (Curran et al., 2010), growth models have successfully been fitted to samples smaller than 100 participants (Kelley et al., 2016). Prior to running our LGM, we examined the ICCs of our groups (five different training groups) and found that stress did not vary across groups (ICC = 0.004); thus “group” was not entered as a covariate in analyses; however, gender was included as a covariate.…”

Mental Health Symptoms and Parenting Among Father-Only and Dual Substance Use Disorder Couples

“…The present research is a secondary analysis of data from a larger study in which eligible couples could receive Behavioral Couples Treatment for substance abuse (Kelley, Bravo, Braitman, Lawless, & Lawrence, 2016). To be eligible for the study, (a) one or both partners had to meet drug or alcohol abuse and/or dependence criteria for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–Fourth edition–Text revision ( DSM-IV-TR ) Axis I Disorders (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV ; First, Spitzer, Gibbon, & Williams, 2010), (b) there was no history of severe partner violence as determined from select items that assess injury on the Conflict Tactics Scale–2 (Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996), (c) family members had to speak fluent English, and (d) parents had to reside with the target child (i.e., for families with more than one child younger than the age of 18 years, the target child was the child with the closest birthdate to the initial screening).…”

Pedagogical Practices for Teaching Addiction Counseling Courses in CACREP‐Accredited Programs

“…In addition to the high prevalence rate, the seriousness of addiction issues is demonstrated by the severity of their impact on individuals' health and overall well‐being (NIDA, 2017). Addictions are linked to major medical concerns (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2019; NIDA, 2020), mental health disorders (Dagher & Green, 2015; Ross et al, 2016), and social issues (Kelley et al, 2015; Salom et al, 2015). Additionally, the CDC (2020) noted that the recent number of deaths from drug overdose was the highest in recorded history.…”