Journal of Child and Family Studies

, Volume 24, Issue 9, pp 2532–2543 | Cite as

A Qualitative Evaluation of an Intervention for Parents of Adolescents with Mental Disorders: The Parenting Challenging Adolescents Seminar

  • Caroline Gilbo
  • Tess Knight
  • Andrew J. Lewis
  • John W. Toumbourou
  • Melanie D. Bertino
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

This qualitative study describes parents’ responses to a targeted and brief educational seminar (known as ‘Parenting Challenging Adolescents’), and provides recommendations for brief parenting interventions designed to engage adolescents in mental health treatment. The 2-h intervention was designed to assist parents who were concerned about their adolescents and in the identification of mental disorders. Participants were invited to attend the seminars conducted in a community setting on the basis of local advertising and promotion of the event with community health services and schools. Any parent of a young person aged 12–25 interested in the seminar material was eligible to attend. Sixteen parents completed measures of parent and youth mental health and family satisfaction and were also interviewed using semi-structured telephone interviews 4 weeks after the seminar. Interpretational phenomenological analysis of interviews suggested that most parents valued the chance to connect with others in similar situations and appreciated knowing about local services available for mental health disorders. Many parents also reported positive changes to communication and family dynamics following the seminar. Another common theme was an increased knowledge of mental disorders and appropriate treatments, along with the desire to receive more specific, targeted information. Overall the findings suggest that even a single session of educational material designed for parents may be useful, engaging and potentially encourage improved service usage for adolescents with mental disorders.

Keywords

Adolescent Parent Parenting intervention Parent education Youth mental illness 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Achenbach, T. M., & Rescorla, L. A. (2001). Manual for the ASEBA school-age forms and profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont, Research Centre for Children, Youth and Families.Google Scholar
  2. Bamberg, J., Toumbourou, J., Blyth, A., & Forer, D. (2001). Change for the BEST: Family changes for parents coping with youth substance abuse. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 22, 189–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Bamberg, J., Toumbourou, J., & Marks, R. (2008). Including the siblings of youth substance abusers in a parent-focused intervention: A pilot test of the BEST Plus program. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 40(3), 281–291.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Barrowclough, C., & Hooley, J. M. (2003). Attributions and expressed emotion: A review. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 849–880.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Berk, L. E. (2003). Child Development (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
  6. Bertera, E. (2007). The role of positive and negative social exchanges between adolescents, their peers and family as predictors of suicide ideation. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 24, 523–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Bertino, M., Richens, K., Knight, T., Toumbourou, J., Ricciardelli, L., & Lewis, A. (2013). Reducing parental anxiety using a family based intervention for youth mental health: A randomized controlled trial. Open Journal of Psychiatry, 3, 173–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Beyers, J. M., Toumbourou, J. W., Catalano, R. F., Arthur, M. W., & Hawkins, J. D. (2004). A cross-national comparison of risk and protective factors for adolescent substance use. Journal of Adolescent Health, 35, 3–16.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  9. Brown, J. M., & Miller, W. R. (1993). Impact of motivational interviewing on participation and outcome in residential alcoholism treatment. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 7, 211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Dishion, T. J., & Stormshak, E. A. (2007). Brief parenting interventions. In T. J. Dishion & E. A. Stormshak (Eds.), Intervening in children’s lives: An ecological, family-centered approach to mental health care (pp. 125–139). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Fernandez, M. A., & Eyberg, S. M. (2009). Predicting treatment and follow-up attrition in parent–child interaction therapy. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 37(3), 431–441.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Friars, P., & Mellor, D. (2009). Drop-out from parenting training programmes: A retrospective study. Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 21, 29–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., & Miller, J. (1992). Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood: Implications for substance abuse prevention. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 64–105.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Hodges, C., O’Brien, M., & McGorry, P. (2007). Headspace: National Youth Mental Health Foundation: Making headway with rural young people and their mental health. The Australian Journal of Rural Health, 15, 77–80.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Jorm, A., Christensen, H., & Griffiths, K. (2005). Public beliefs about causes and risk factors for mental disorders: Changes in Australia over 8 years. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40, 764–767.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Jorm, A., & Wright, A. (2007). Beliefs of young people and their parents about the effectiveness of interventions for mental disorders. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 41, 656–666.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Jorm, A., Wright, A., & Morgan, A. J. (2007). Beliefs about appropriate first aid for young people with mental disorders: Findings from an Australian national survey of youth and parents. Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 1, 61–70.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Kazdin, A. E. (2007). Psychosocial treatments for conduct disorder in children and adolescents. In P. E. Nathan & J. M. Gorman (Eds.), A guide to treatments that work (3rd ed., pp. 71–104). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  19. Kelly, C. M., Mithen, J. M., Fischer, J. A., Kitchener, B. A., Jorm, A. F., Lowe, A., et al. (2011). Youth mental health first aid: A description of the program and an initial evaluation. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 5, 4–12.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Kessler, R., Andrews, G., Colpe, L., Hiripi, E., Mroczek, D., et al. (2002). Short screening scales to monitor population prevalence and trends in non-specific psychological distress. Psychological Medicine, 32, 959–976.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Kessler, R., Foster, C., Saunders, W., & Stang, P. (1995). Social consequences of psychiatric disorders, I: Educational attainment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 152, 1026–1032.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Kumpfer, K. L., Whiteside, H. O., Greene, J., & Allen, K. (2010). Effectiveness outcomes of four age versions of the Strengthening Families Program in statewide field sites. Group dynamics: Theory, research, and practice, 14(3), 211–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Kupfer, D. J., Frank, E., & Perel, J. M. (1989). The advantage of early treatment intervention in recurrent depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 46, 771–775.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Lewis, A. J., Bertino, M. D., Skewes, J., Shand, L., Borojevic, N., Knight, T., et al. (2013). Adolescent depressive disorders and family based interventions in the family options multicenter evaluation: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials, 14, 384.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. Lim, M., Stormshak, E. A., & Dishion, T. J. (2005). A one-session intervention for parents of young adolescents: Videotape modeling and motivational group discussion. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 13, 194–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Marshall, M., Lewis, S., Lockwood, A., Drake, R., Jones, P., & Croudace, T. (2005). Association between duration of untreated psychosis and outcome in cohorts of first-episode patients: A systematic review. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 975–983.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Merrell, K. W. (1999a). Assessment and classifications. In K. W. Merrell (Ed.), Behavioural, social and emotional assessment of children and adolescents. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
  28. Merrell, K. W. (1999b). Behavior rating scales. In K. W. Merrell (Ed.), Behavioural, social and emotional assessment of children and adolescents. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
  29. Mulford, C., & Redding, R. (2008). Training the parents of juvenile offenders: State of the art and recommendations for service delivery. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 17, 629–648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. Nock, M. K., & Kazdin, A. E. (2005). Randomized controlled trial of a brief intervention for increasing participation in parent management training. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 872–879.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. Pringle, J., Drummond, J., McLafferty, E., & Hendry, C. (2011). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: a discussion and critique. Nurse Researcher, 18(3), 20–24.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Ralph, A., & Sanders, M. (2003). Preliminary evaluation of the Group Teen Triple P program for parents of teenagers making the transition to high school. Australian e-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health, 2(3), 169–178.Google Scholar
  33. Ralph, A., & Sanders, M. (2004). The Teen Triple P positive parenting program: A preliminary evaluation. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 282, 1–6.Google Scholar
  34. Ralph, A., Toumbourou, J., Grigg, M., Mulcahy, R., Carr-Gregg, M., & Sanders, M. (2003). Early intervention to help parents manage behavioural and emotional problems in early adolescents: What parents want. Australian e-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health, 2(3), 156–168.Google Scholar
  35. Robinson, J., Pirkis, J., Krysinska, K., Niner, S., Jorm, A. F., Dudley, M., et al. (2008). Research priorities in suicide prevention in Australia. Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 29, 180–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. Sanders, M. (2010). Adopting a public health approach to the delivery of evidence-based parenting interventions. Canadian Psychology, 51, 17–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Sanders, M., Prior, J., & Ralph, A. (2009). An evaluation of a brief universal seminar series on positive parenting: A feasibility study. Journal of Children’s Services, 4, 4–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  38. Sanders, M., & Turner, K. (2005). Reflections on the challenges of effective dissemination of behavioural family intervention: Our experience with the Triple P: Positive parenting program. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 10, 158–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  39. Shortt, A. L., Hutchinson, D. M., Chapman, R., & Toumbourou, J. W. (2007). Family, school, peer and individual influences on early adolescent alcohol use: First year impact of the Resilient Families program. Drug and Alcohol Review, 26, 625–634.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  40. Smith, J., & Eatough, V. (2007). Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In Evanthia Lyons & Adrian Cole (Eds.), Analysing qualitative data in psychology (pp. 35–50). London: Sage Publications Inc.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  41. Stormshak, E., Kaminski, R., & Goodman, M. (2002). Enhancing the parenting skills of Head Start families during the transition to kindergarten. Prevention Science, 3(3), 223–234.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  42. Talmon, M. (1990). Single-session therapy: Maximizing the effect of the first (and often only) therapeutic encounter. Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
  43. Toumbourou, J., Blyth, A., Bamberg, J., Bowes, G., & Douvos, T. (1997). The ‘BEST’ approach for parents stressed by adolescent drug problems. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 18, 92–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  44. Toumbourou, J., Blyth, A., Bamberg, J., & Forer, D. (2001). Early impact of the BEST intervention for parents stressed by adolescent substance abuse. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 11, 291–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  45. Toumbourou, J., & Gregg, M. (2001). Working with families to promote healthy adolescent development. Family Matters, 59, 54–60.Google Scholar
  46. Toumbourou, J. W., & Gregg, M. (2002). Impact of an empowerment-based parent education program on the reduction of youth suicide risk factors. Journal of Adolescent Health, 31, 277–285.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  47. Toumbourou, J. W., Gregg, M. E., Davies, L., Carr-Gregg, M. (1999). The parenting adolescents quiz: Parent education in early secondary school can be fun. Health Education Australia, Spring, 6–9.Google Scholar
  48. Turner, K., & Sanders, M. (2007). Family intervention in Indigenous communities: Emergent issues in conducting outcome research. Australasian Psychiatry: Bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, 15(Suppl. 1), S39–S43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  49. Wright, A., Harris, M., Wiggers, J., Jorm, A., Cotton, S., Harrigan, S., et al. (2005). Recognition of depression and psychosis by young Australians and their beliefs about treatment. Medical Journal of Australia, 183, 18–23.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  50. Zask, A., van Beurden, E., Brooks, L. O., & Dight, R. (2006). Is it worth the RRISK? Evaluation of the RRISK (Reduce Risk Increase Student Knowledge) program for adolescents in rural Australia. Journal of Adolescent Health, 38, 495–503.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  • Caroline Gilbo
    • 1
  • Tess Knight
    • 1
  • Andrew J. Lewis
    • 1
  • John W. Toumbourou
    • 1
  • Melanie D. Bertino
    • 1
  1. 1.School of PsychologyDeakin UniversityBurwoodAustralia

Personalised recommendations