Poster #64 - Comparing Research on Interventions for Parent/Caregiver Trauma and Alcohol Problems: Results From a Scoping Review

• In Event: Poster Session 12

Abstract

Children of parents with behavioral health (BH) problems are at increased risk for a wide range of negative outcomes. It is often assumed that effectively treating parents’ BH problems will disrupt such intergenerational risk pathways, but strong evidence to support this assumption is lacking. Previous reviews investigating the impact of parent-focused BH interventions on children have been limited in scope (see Table 1) and have not produced robust or generalizable conclusions. To address these concerns, we are conducting a broad-based review of studies that have tested effects of interventions for a wide range of parent BH problems on the full-spectrum of studied child outcomes. This broad-based approach will afford sufficient power to reliably estimate the average impact of parent-focused BH interventions on children, assess for potential between-study moderators of intervention effects (e.g., parent problem type, child age), and identify gaps in the literature. Here we present preliminary findings from this larger review, focusing specifically on interventions for parental trauma- and alcohol-related BH problems. METHODS: The PubMed (MEDLINE) database was searched for randomized controlled trials with an appropriate control condition that reported at least one outcome from a sample of children (under 18 years) whose parent(s) or primary caregiver(s) received an intervention intended to treat or prevent a trauma- or alcohol-related BH concern. To be included in the final review, all articles must be screened independently by two team members with all discrepancies resolved by consensus. RESULTS: The PubMed search returned 3,724 total records. Title-abstract screening identified 524 potentially-eligible reports. Full-text screening has been completed by a single coder and identified 57 eligible studies projected to be included in the final review (see Figure 1 for details). Second coding and discrepancy resolution is 70% complete. Descriptive statistics will be presented to describe key characteristics of this body of literature, including features of the interventions, comparison conditions, samples, moderators, mediators, and outcomes studied, and study findings regarding intervention effects on child outcomes. Moderator and mediator variables will be classified based on the eight categories of risk/protective factors in Hosman and colleagues’ (2009) developmental model of transgenerational transmission of psychopathology. IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS: There have been growing efforts to specifically identify and address both alcohol- and trauma-related BH problems among parents (e.g., Dubowitz et al., 2022; McGovern et al., 2018), but no prior reviews have systematically searched for and synthesized evidence examining how such efforts may impact children. Findings from the current review indicate that a sufficient amount of high-quality evidence is available to do so, although we also expect that findings may identify substantial gaps in the research literature. Meta-analytic synthesis of this evidence is needed to inform further research, clinical, and policy efforts to reduce the intergenerational harms associated with parent trauma- and alcohol-related BH problems.

Authors

• Jack H Andrews, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Arrionna C Sackett, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Mary Grace Reeves, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Kristin M Hawley, University of Missouri - Columbia