Treatment of depressed mothers with disruptive children: A controlled evaluation of cognitive behavioral family intervention

This study compared the effects of two forms of behavioral family intervent ion in reducing mothers' depression and disruptive behavior problems in fam ilies with a clinically depressed parent and a child with significant condu ct problems. Forty-seven parents were randomly assigned to either a Behavio ral Family Intervention (BFI) or to Cognitive Behavioral Family Interventio n (CBFI) which integrated cognitive therapy strategies to treat depression and teaching of parenting skills. treatments were equally effective in redu cing mothers' depression and child disruptive behavior on observational and self-report measures at postintervention. However, at 6-month follow-up mo re families in CBFI (53%) compared to BFI (13%) experienced concurrent clin ically reliable reductions in maternal depression and child disruptive beha vior These findings support the value of CBFI in reducing depression in mot hers of children with disruptive behavior problems.