New Beginnings Follow-up Children of Divorce: A Six-Year Follow-up of Preventive Efforts

This RO1 supported a six-year follow-up of the effects of the two preventive interventions for children of divorce, a mother program and a dual-component program, relative to the literature control condition.

These programs were designed to prevent children's mental health problems by changing risk and protective factors identified in earlier psychosocial research on this population. Examination of whether the effects of preventive interventions for children of divorce is critical for several reasons. First, given that mental disorder, substance use, risky sexual behavior, and academic achievement have implications for functioning in early, as well as later, adulthood, it is important to assess whether the effects of these interventions persist over time and development. Second, long-term follow-up studies are critical for articulating causal processes of mental disorders (National Advisory Mental Health Council Report, 1998) and for identifying mediators and moderators of lasting preventive effects. Relatedly, long-term follow-up studies provide unique opportunities to examine alternative theoretical models in which environmental, interpersonal, and intrapersonal variables in childhood predict mental health problems and developmental competencies in young adulthood. Third, the increased interest of the courts in providing parent education programs after divorce provides an opportunity to influence public policy. Data on the long-term effects of preventive programs can guide the selection of programs to be implemented at a population level.

This follow-up assessed adolescents when they were between 15-19 and had a retention rate of 91%. Analyses indicated significant effects of both programs on a wide array of outcome, including diagnosis of mental disorder; number of sexual partners; externalizing problems; symptoms of mental disorder; alcohol, marijuana, and drug use, and GPA. Eleven percent of adolescents in the mother plus child program had a 1-year prevalence of diagnosed mental disorder compared with 23.5% of adolescents in the control program. Adolescents in the mother plus child program had fewer sexual partners compared with adolescents in the control program. Adolescents with higher initial mental health whose families were in the mother plus child program had lower externalizing problems and fewer symptoms of mental disorder compared with those in the control program. Compared with controls, adolescents whose mothers participated in the mother program and who had higher initial mental health problems had lower levels of externalizing problems; fewer symptoms of mental disorder; and less alcohol, marijuana, and other drug use. Analyses indicated no significant differences occurred between the two active conditions.

These results provide evidence that relatively brief prevention programs for children of divorce have lasting effects on a wide array of developmentally meaningful outcomes. Future research is planned to evaluate the mother program when delivered on a large-scale basis in family court settings and to evaluate the longer term effects of both the mother and the dual component interventions.

Dr. Sharlene Wolchik, Principal Investigator