Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 37, Issue 2, June 2006, Pages 143-158
Behavior Therapy

Cognitive-Behavioral Depression Treatment for Mothers of Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2005.08.001Get rights and content

Abstract

An adaptation of the Coping With Depression Course (CWDC) was evaluated in mothers of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a population at risk for depression. Mothers were randomly assigned to receive the CWDC either immediately following an intensive summer treatment program targeting their child's behavior or after a wait-list period. Measures of maternal functioning, cognitions about child behavior, parent-child and marital relationship quality, child behavior, and ADHD-related family impairment were obtained at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 5-month follow-up. The CWDC resulted in improvements in maternal depressive symptoms, maternal self-esteem, child-related cognitions, and family impairment at posttreatment compared to a wait-list control group that were maintained at follow-up. Findings suggest that the CWDC is a promising intervention for mothers of children with ADHD, particularly those with current depressive symptomatology.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were recruited for 3 years (1998–2000) from families who were enrolled in the ADHD Summer Treatment Program (STP) offered by the Center for Children and Families at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. During the final week of the STP, mothers were provided the opportunity to participate in a 12-week “Maternal Stress and Coping Group.” Sixty-two mothers agreed to participate in the study and signed the study consent form. Twenty-six mothers in Year 1 (15

Maternal Functioning

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961), a 21-item self-report instrument that assesses depressive symptomatology, is perhaps the most widely used outcome measure in treatment studies of depression (Dobson, 1989). On the BDI, participants indicate which of four statements most accurately reflects how they felt during the preceding week (e.g., “I do not feel sad” vs. “I feel sad” vs. “I am sad all the time and I can't snap out of it” vs. “I am so sad or

Analytic strategy

Consistent with our past practice (Roberts, Shapiro & Gamble, 1999), on each of the weekly measures (BDI, BAI, IOWA Conners, PSS, and RSE), scores from the pre- or posttreatment measures and the weekly rating prior to and following completion of pre- or posttreatment measures (three scores in total) were averaged to provide a more reliable measure of the constructs.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment program in the four domains under examination, 2 × 2 (group: immediate

Discussion

The current study provided a preliminary evaluation of the efficacy of a cognitive-behavioral group depression intervention for mothers of children with ADHD. In this study, mothers were randomly assigned to an immediate treatment group or a wait-list control group following their children's participation in the STP. We hypothesized that participation in the CWDC would result in improvement in four domains: (1) maternal functioning; (2) maternal expectations and attributions for child behavior;

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    This article was accepted under the editorship of David A. F. Haaga.

    1

    Dr. Chronis is now at the University of Maryland, College Park.

    2

    Dr. Gamble is now at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

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