Year: 2004
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This dissertation explores the role of coping resources in predicting child \npsychotherapy outcome in a community mental health center. Coping resources \nare a set of physical, social, and psychological resources that help an individual to \nmanage daily life demands and include characteristics of the functional \nintelligence needed for everyday living. Transactional models of stress have \nprovided a framework for understanding the process between coping resources \nand stress/demands that take into account one’s personal appraisal of internal \nresources and external demands. This perspective has been particularly useful in \nresearch investigating outcomes of stressful events in relation to children and in a \nvariety of domains, such as medicine, divorce, and academia. Although no \nresearch available investigates coping resources as a predictor of child \npsychotherapy outcome, much research has focused on determining the efficacy \nof child psychotherapy with little evidence of clear predictor variables. In an \nattempt to understand child psychotherapy outcome and coping resources, the role \nof the family, namely the parents, must be considered, as family factors are well \nestablished contributors to a child’s functioning. To this date, research that has \nfocused on treatment outcome variables has, to a large extent, been conducted \nusing inpatient populations. Therefore, using a sample drawn from an outpatient \npopulation, such as a community mental health center, is warranted. \nDue to these deficits in the child psychotherapy outcome literature, the \nprimary focus of this proposed study is exploratory in nature. This study examines \nthe role of three potential predictor variables (participant coping resources, \nparticipant’s cognitive functioning, and parental coping resources) of child and \nadolescent psychotherapy outcome in a southwestern community mental health \npopulation. Outcome is measured behaviorally and is based on self report of the \nparticipant, parent report of participant behavior, and clinician report of \nparticipant behavior. Multiple regression analyses are employed using global \nscores from coping resources, behavioral outcome, and cognitive functioning \ninstruments. Paired comparisons of pretest and posttest measures to address \ndifferences in means are computed. Results, implications, and limitations of the \nstudy as well as future directions are discussed.
Author: Allison Lucille Sallee
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1937326330