Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESEvaluation of Child Therapy and Caregiver Training in the Treatment of School Refusal
Section snippets
SUBJECTS
Subjects aged between 7 and 14 years were drawn from the School Refusal Clinic (SRC), located in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service at Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Referrals were made by education staff, mental health professionals, and general practitioners. In some cases families were self-referred.
Children and adolescents were selected into the study on the basis of the school refusal criteria provided by Berg and colleagues (Berg, 1996;Berg et al., 1969),
PRETREATMENT COMPARISON OF GROUPS
The three treatment groups were comparable on all of the demographic characteristics and all of the variables pertaining to school refusal behavior. Likewise there were no significant differences between the groups on any of the dependent variables at pretreatment.
TREATMENT OUTCOME
Significant phase effects (p values < .001) indicated improvement over time, across the treatment conditions, for all of the measures of child functioning.
DISCUSSION
For children in all three treatment programs, improvements in attendance were accompanied by a reduction in emotional distress and an increase in self-efficacy. The clinical significance of this change is perhaps best reflected in the diagnostic composition of the sample. Whereas every child warranted at least one DSM-IV disorder at pretreatment, 69% of the children no longer met criteria for an anxiety disorder at follow-up, and 60% did not meet criteria for any disorder. The outcomes for
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2019, Cognitive and Behavioral PracticeDifferentiation Between School Attendance Problems: Why and How?
2019, Cognitive and Behavioral PracticeCitation Excerpt :The distinction between SR and TR is based on the notion that SR involves the following: reluctance or refusal to attend in association with emotional distress (e.g., Bahali, Tahiroglu, Avci, & Seydaoglu, 2011; Carless, Melvin, Tonge, & Newman, 2015; Doobay, 2008; Egger et al., 2003; Havik et al., 2015a; Heyne et al., 2002; Maric, Heyne, MacKinnon, van Widenfelt, & Westenberg, 2013; Martin, Cabrol, Bouvard, Lepine, & Mouren-Simeoni, 1999; Maynard et al., 2015; Nuttall & Woods, 2013); the absence of serious antisocial behavior (e.g., Bernstein et al., 2000; Doobay, 2008; Hella & Bernstein, 2012; Honjo et al., 2001; McShane, Walter, & Rey, 2001; Place, Hulsmeier, Brownrigg, & Soulsby, 2005); and the young person staying at home and/or not concealing their absence from parents (e.g., Hansen, Sanders, Massaro, & Last, 1998; Hughes, Gullone, Dudley, & Tonge, 2010; Kameguchi & Murphy-Shigematsu, 2001; Okuyama, Okada, Kuribayashi, & Kaneko, 1999; Timberlake, 1984; Wu et al., 2013). Differentiation between SR and SW is often based on parents having made reasonable efforts to enforce school attendance or expressing their commitment to work towards school attendance (e.g., Heyne et al., 2002; Maric, Heyne, de Heus, van Widenfelt, & Westenberg, 2012; McKay-Brown et al., accepted; Melvin et al., 2017). Anecdotal support for differentiation between SAP types is not confined to its common practice.
This study was conducted with the support of the National Health and Medical Research Council (project grant 940572 ).