Children of Depressed Parents: Family-Based Prevention

Children of depressed parents are at risk for developing social-emotional problems. Despite the fact that economic hardship is a strong risk factor for both maternal depression and poor child development, little research has been conducted to develop prevention programs for low-income urban families. This randomized, open-label study will address the research gap by developing and pilot-testing the Protecting Families Program (PFP), a family-based, multi-component prevention program. The PFP will offer its services to low-income, urban, depressed parents and their children between the ages of 9 and 14.

Prior to the interventional portion of the study, several small focus groups composed of mental-health care providers and depressed parents will meet. The purpose of these focus groups will be to gather information that will help maximize the effectiveness of the remainder of the study. The interventional phase will compare PFP combined with individual parent training versus parent training alone. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of these two intervention groups. The study will last a total of 10 weeks. Both groups will meet once each week. PFP will include a community meal at the beginning of each session, a parent skills training group, and a concurrent cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) group for the focal child. Participants' symptoms, diagnosis, functional status, family functioning, cognitive factors, and parenting practices will be assessed at the study start date, immediately post-intervention, and 6 months post-intervention.