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Garai, Emily P.

Psychology

2012

PhD

Mental health problems, including internalizing problems, are a major concern among children under the age of 16 years. In order to prevent such problems, interventions have been designed to target children at risk (e.g., Compas et aI., 2010). One specific risk factor, parental depression, can be mitigated by programs that teach children coping skills or families a combination of coping skills and parenting skills. While these prevention programs have been found to be effective, there has been a call to conduct research that identifies for whom (moderation) treatment works. A number of moderators have been identified in research examining child depressive symptoms. The present study examines four of these variables as moderators (initial level of child depressive symptoms, age, sex, and initial level of parental depressive symptoms) of the Raising Healthy Children Program (Compas et al., 2009).
One hundred eighty families participated and were assessed at baseline, 2 months, 6 months, and 12 months. Child report of depressive symptoms, anxiety/depression, and internalizing problems served as the outcomes.
Results indicated that none of the four variables moderated treatment outcome when child depressive symptoms was the outcome variable; however, initiaI level of child depressive symptoms did significantly moderate the outcome when the two broader measures of internalizing problems (i.e., Anxiety/Depression Syndrome Scale, Internalizing Problems Broadband Scale) were the outcome variables. Children with high levels of depressive symptoms at baseline showed a greater reduction in symptoms when in the intervention group than the control group. For children with low levels of depressive symptoms at baseline, there was little change in symptoms regardless of the group in which the child participated.