Prevention of familial transmission of depression through a family‐oriented programme targeting parenting as well as the child's social competence

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to evaluate the prevention programme EFFEKT‐E that was designed for preschool children of depressive mothers and contains an intervention for children and for mothers.Design/methodology/approachResearch was carried out in mother‐child clinics in Germany. In total, 220 strained mothers, who were screened for elevated levels of depressive symptoms, were enrolled in the control and 186 in the training group. For evaluation, mothers rated emotional disturbance and social competence of the child as outcome measures before and after the training. Changes in parenting behaviour, perceived parental competence and parenting stress were also assessed.FindingsAn effect on emotional disturbance of the child emerged (d=0.52) in the training group. Perceived parental competence increased (d=0.72) and parental stress decreased (d=0.23) significantly under training. EFFEKT‐E has proven to be a valuable programme for preventing depression in offspring of mothers who feel depressed.Originality/valueThe article identifies the significance of focusing on parenting as a preventive intervention in the mechanisms of familial transmission of depression and evaluation of a family‐oriented programme for young children designed to achieve this.

Preventive interventions for children and adolescents of parents with mental illness: A systematic review

“…Statistical significance was found in all of them, with clinically significant changes in 67%. In one of them the effects were large, measured by Cohen's d (Ginsburg et al, 2015); in four others they were medium (Compas et al, 2010;Fernando et al, 2018;Foster et al, 2016;Stemmler et al, 2013).…”

“…One study with 145 children did not report the sex nor the specific age of the children (Solantaus et al, 2010). In most of the studies, the recruitment of the sample was done within the community environment of the families targeted by the intervention, except in three studies where the selection was done through the mental health centres where the parents were being seen (Fernando et al, 2018;Stemmler et al, 2013;van Santvoort et al, 2014). Specific parental diagnosis was collected in 11 of the studies (Compas et al, 2010(Compas et al, , 2015Fernando et al, 2018;Foster et al, 2016;Fraser & Pakenham, 2008;Ginsburg et al, 2015;Goodyear et al, 2009;Grové et al, 2013Pitman & Matthey, 2004;Solantaus et al, 2010;Stemmler et al, 2013).…”

“…In most of the studies, the recruitment of the sample was done within the community environment of the families targeted by the intervention, except in three studies where the selection was done through the mental health centres where the parents were being seen (Fernando et al, 2018;Stemmler et al, 2013;van Santvoort et al, 2014). Specific parental diagnosis was collected in 11 of the studies (Compas et al, 2010(Compas et al, , 2015Fernando et al, 2018;Foster et al, 2016;Fraser & Pakenham, 2008;Ginsburg et al, 2015;Goodyear et al, 2009;Grové et al, 2013Pitman & Matthey, 2004;Solantaus et al, 2010;Stemmler et al, 2013). Four studies had a sample that consisted exclusively of parents with major depressive disorder (MDD) (Compas et al, 2010(Compas et al, , 2015Fernando et al, 2018;Stemmler et al, 2013) with a total number of 991 parents.…”

“…The remaining collected disorders were: anxiety disorder (213); bipolar disorder (69); schizophrenia (54); borderline personality disorder (23); post-traumatic stress disorder (9); obsessive-compulsive disorder (4); schizoaffective disorder (9). The characteristics of the collected sample, through different studies, are shown in Table 2, where it can be seen that seven of the studies reported the specific intervention, carried out on the parents, who were distributed in IG (798 participants) and CG (530 participants) (Compas et al, 2010(Compas et al, , 2015Fernando et al, 2018;Ginsburg et al, 2015;Solantaus et al, 2010;Stemmler et al, 2013;van Santvoort et al, 2014). The family sample consisted of 1126 mothers and 202 fathers with MI.…”

“…The instruments applied to evaluate the intervention were also diverse. Nine studies used questionnaires and instruments with high psychometric quality and validation for the selected population samples (Compas et al, 2010(Compas et al, , 2015Fernando et al, 2018;Foster et al, 2016;Ginsburg et al, 2015;Im & Heo, 2021;Solantaus et al, 2010;Stemmler et al, 2013;van Santvoort et al, 2014).…”