Abstract
The study developed a multidimensional measure to assess participant responsiveness to a preventive intervention and applied this measure to study how participant baseline characteristics predict responsiveness and how responsiveness predicts program outcomes. The study was conducted with caregivers who participated in the parenting-focused component of the Family Bereavement Program (FBP), a prevention program for families that have experienced parental death. The sample consisted of 89 caregivers assigned to the intervention condition in the efficacy trial of the FBP. Positive parenting, caregiver depression, and child externalizing problems at baseline were found to predict caregivers' use of program skills outside the group, and more child internalizing problems predicted more positive perceptions of the group environment. Higher levels of skill use during the program predicted increased positive parenting at the 11-month follow-up, whereas positive perceptions of the group environment predicted decreased caregiver depressive symptoms at follow-up. Caregiver skill use mediated the relation between baseline positive parenting and improvements in positive parenting at 11-month follow-up, and skill use and perceived group environment mediated changes in caregiver depression from baseline to 11-month follow-up.
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Notes
Prior analyses using the data found that families with missing data did not differ from those with complete data on demographic variables (Kwok et al. 2005).
Loadings for the three-factor EFA indicated that home practice completion loaded on its own factor. The other variables related to the use of program skills (home practice efficacy, fidelity, frequency of skill use, and perceived skill helpfulness) loaded on a second factor, whereas variables associated with liking of the program and its environment (attendance, program satisfaction, and group environment subscales) loaded on a third factor.
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The writing of this paper was funded in part by the National Institute of Health grant R01MH049155-06, gratefully acknowledged.
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Schoenfelder, E.N., Sandler, I.N., Millsap, R.E. et al. Caregiver Responsiveness to the Family Bereavement Program: What Predicts Responsiveness? What Does Responsiveness Predict?. Prev Sci 14, 545–556 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-012-0337-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-012-0337-7