Most of the existing research on child and adolescent mental health care and its effects is derived from controlled experiments involving conditions quite unlike those in most clinics. To complement that experimental data base, the proposed research will focus on outpatient treatment of children and adolescents (here referred to as children) in community clinics. Children aged 8-15 (initial N=545) will be assessed at clinic intake using established measures of adjustment, diagnosis, and parent-child communication. The measures will be repeated at 6 months, l year, and 2 years after intake, for (ad-children who continue for a full course of treatment, (b) those who start treatment but drop out prematurely, and (c) those who drop out immediately after intake. The longitudinal data thus generated will be used to test predictions associated with a multi-factor model of child treatment outcome. This model is applied to the individualized, family-oriented, outpatient treatment provided in five participating nonprofit child mental health clinics in a representative target zone of Los Angeles County. In the model, child outcomes are hypothesized to differ as a function of gender (with greater treatment benefits for girls than boys), ethnicity (with Latino children benefiting more than others), parent-child communication style (with treatment effects influenced favorably by positive styles and adversely by negative styles), and parent pathology (with treatment mitigating the impact of parent pathology on child outcome).
Specific aims of the study are (a) to identify groups that are being well-served by current outpatient treatment and other groups for whom services may need to be modified or improved, and (b) to generate suggestions for enhancing the effects of community-clinic-based outpatient treatment. A broad, long-term objective is to complement our field's large base of controlled, experimental evidence with information on outpatient child treatment in practicing community clinics.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
2R01MH049522-03A1
Application #
2248937
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (SRCM (01))
Project Start
1991-09-30
Project End
1998-03-31
Budget Start
1994-09-01
Budget End
1995-08-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
1994
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California Los Angeles
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
119132785
City
Los Angeles
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
90095
Langer, David A; McLeod, Bryce D; Weisz, John R (2011) Do treatment manuals undermine youth-therapist alliance in community clinical practice? J Consult Clin Psychol 79:427-32
McLeod, Bryce D; Weisz, John R (2010) The Therapy Process Observational Coding System for Child Psychotherapy-Strategies Scale. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 39:436-43
Jensen-Doss, Amanda; Weisz, John R (2008) Diagnostic agreement predicts treatment process and outcomes in youth mental health clinics. J Consult Clin Psychol 76:711-22
McLeod, Bryce D; Wood, Jeffrey J; Weisz, John R (2007) Examining the association between parenting and childhood anxiety: a meta-analysis. Clin Psychol Rev 27:155-72
Lau, Anna S; Valeri, Sylvia M; McCarty, Carolyn A et al. (2006) Abusive parents' reports of child behavior problems: relationship to observed parent-child interactions. Child Abuse Negl 30:639-55
Doss, Amanda Jensen; Weisz, John R (2006) Syndrome co-occurrence and treatment outcomes in youth mental health clinics. J Consult Clin Psychol 74:416-25
Weisz, John R; Weiss, Bahr; Suwanlert, Somsong et al. (2006) Culture and youth psychopathology: testing the syndromal sensitivity model in Thai and American adolescents. J Consult Clin Psychol 74:1098-107
Hawley, Kristin M; Weisz, John R (2005) Youth versus parent working alliance in usual clinical care: distinctive associations with retention, satisfaction, and treatment outcome. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 34:117-28
McLeod, Bryce D; Weisz, John R (2005) The therapy process observational coding system-alliance scale: measure characteristics and prediction of outcome in usual clinical practice. J Consult Clin Psychol 73:323-33
McCarty, Carolyn A; Lau, Anna S; Valeri, Sylvia M et al. (2004) Parent-child interactions in relation to critical and emotionally overinvolved expressed emotion (EE): is EE a proxy for behavior? J Abnorm Child Psychol 32:83-93

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