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- Title
A family-based approach to the prevention of depressive symptoms in children at risk: evidence of parental and child change.
- Authors
Beardslee, William R; Gladstone, Tracy R G; Wright, Ellen J; Cooper, Andrew B
- Abstract
Depression in parents is a prevalent and impairing illness that is encountered frequently in medical practice. Children of depressed parents are at risk for psychopathology and other difficulties. A series of recent national reports have recommended the development of prevention efforts targeting children of depressed parents. Yet, to date, few controlled prevention studies of depression in children and adolescents have been conducted. In this study, we report the evaluation of 2 preventive intervention strategies that target children living in homes with depressed parents. Both are public health approaches that were designed to be used by a wide range of practitioners from a variety of disciplines, including pediatricians, internists, school counselors, nurses, and mental health practitioners. We adopted a developmental perspective and intervened with families when children were entering the age of highest risk for depression onset (ie, adolescence). We chose a family-based approach to prevention and sought to reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors for early adolescents by increasing positive interactions between parents and children, and by increasing understanding of the illness for everyone in the family. Our prevention approaches were designed to provide information about mood disorders to parents, to equip parents with the skills they need to communicate information to their children, and to open a dialogue with their children about the effects of parental depression. We hypothesized that participation in these prevention programs would result in parental change in child-related behaviors and attitudes about depression and its impact on the family. In addition, we hypothesized that this parental change would produce change in children's self-understanding, and in children's depressive symptomatology.
- Publication
Pediatrics, 2003, Vol 112, Issue 2, pe119
- ISSN
1098-4275
- Publication type
Journal Article
- DOI
10.1542/peds.112.2.e119