Reducing parental anxiety using a family based intervention for youth mental health: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract

This paper presents findings on parent anxiety and attachment relationship style from the Deakin Family Options (DFO) pilot study, a randomized controlled pilot study comparing a family-based treatment (BEST Plus), versus a youth only treatment (CBT) versus a group who received both of these treatments (COM-BINED). Eligible participants were families with a young person (aged 12 -25 years) with a high prevalence mental health problem. Youth from participating families scored in the clinical or subclinical range for depression, anxiety and/or substance misuse symptoms on standardized measures during the initial assessment. The collected sample was drawn from regional and urban centers in Victoria, Australia and allocated to treatment condition using a simple randomization procedure (parallel design). It was hypothesized that families receiving the BEST Plus would experience greater reductions in youth and parent mental health symptoms, and improved parent-child relationships, compared with those in the CBT condition. This paper describes and discusses changes in parent anxiety and parent attachment, according to whether the parent participated in a treatment (BEST Plus) or did not (NONBEST Plus). Participants were blind to the study hypotheses. In total 71 parent participants returned pre data and were allocated to a treatment group. In this paper, data from parent participants who completed pre and post measures (n = 48) and pre, post, and 6-month follow-up measures (n = 28) on anxiety and attachment were analyzed by group (BEST Plus versus NONBEST Plus). The results of this study suggest that parent anxiety decreased significantly more following parent involvement in a group treatment, than for parents that did not receive treatment. Unexpectedly, avoidant attachment increased in the no treatment group, but remained relatively stable following the BEST Plus group. There were no significant findings in relation to compulsive traits and anxious attachment. These findings are discussed in light of the study limitations.

An Australian adaptation of the Strengthening Families Program: Parent and child mental health outcomes from a pilot study

“…These findings reinforce the potential benefits of familybased interventions targeting CMH in improving PMH and wellbeing (Bertino et al, 2013;Cluxton-Keller et al, 2015;Poole et al, 2018), though further analysis is necessary to determine whether this extends to clinical levels of depression and anxiety in parents. These findings reinforce the potential benefits of familybased interventions targeting CMH in improving PMH and wellbeing (Bertino et al, 2013;Cluxton-Keller et al, 2015;Poole et al, 2018), though further analysis is necessary to determine whether this extends to clinical levels of depression and anxiety in parents.…”

“…In addition, results were also indicative of a significant reduction in parental psychological distress post-program and at follow-up; however, these effects did not maintain significance when comparing the 8-and 14-session SFC. These findings reinforce the potential benefits of familybased interventions targeting CMH in improving PMH and wellbeing (Bertino et al, 2013;Cluxton-Keller et al, 2015;Poole et al, 2018), though further analysis is necessary to determine whether this extends to clinical levels of depression and anxiety in parents.…”

“…Increasingly, evidence indicates that family-based CMH interventions also have beneficial outcomes for PMH and wellbeing (Yuen & Toumbourou, 2008). Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have found that family interventions targeting youth depression and anxiety symptoms significantly reduced parental anxiety (Bertino et al, 2013), stress and depressive symptoms (Poole et al, 2018), beyond parent or youth only treatment. A recent systematic review and metaanalysis also reported that family therapeutic interventions embedded within general paediatric care improved PMH (Cluxton-Keller et al, 2015).…”

Attachment-Based Family Therapy for Adolescent Substance Use: A Move to the Level of Systems

“…Clinical trials our team have being running in Australia have accumulated good evidence to show that the approach can effectively treat a range of adolescent mental disorders. The studies show that improvement in adolescent mental health is typically accompanied by improvements in family functioning and notably improvements in the parent's mental health (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). Previously our research group has also published qualitative studies of participant experiences as well as a description of the main features of the program for the treatment of adolescent depression called BEST-Mood (5,9,10).…”

A Multi‐Family Group Intervention for Adolescent Depression: TheBEST MOODProgram

“…Such outcomes were also observed in a pilot study that evaluated the BEST Plus program ( N = 34), which also reported improved family cohesion, and increased youth motivation and action to address their mental health issues (Bamberg et al., ). Parental depression and anxiety were also shown to reduce significantly in response to BEST Plus in a randomized controlled pilot study ( N = 48) that compared a youth only CBT group, versus a BEST Plus condition, versus a combined group who received both BEST Plus and CBT treatments (Bertino et al., ).…”