Grant: Project Grant

Children with difficulties managing their emotions and behaviours are more likely than their peers to develop a mental illness in adolescence and adulthood. Parents of children with high levels of emotion and behaviour difficulties experience elevated rates of depression, and parental depression is associated with the emergence of child emotional and behavioural difficulties. Therefore, designing effective treatment for parents of children with emotion and behavioural difficulties that takes into account parental depression is necessary. Of pressing concern, front line treatments for parents of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties are not tailored to parents own emotional needs, which may be why many parents and children fail to sufficiently benefit from treatment. A novel parental treatment for depressed parents of children with emotion and behaviour difficulties called the Addressing Depression and Positive Parenting Treatment (ADAPT) has been developed by the NPI (Andrade) at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). ADAPT incorporates elements from other evidence-based treatments for depression to help parents develop skills to regulate their negative emotions and challenge unhelpful thinking patterns that interfere with their ability to implement effective parenting strategies. These strategies are integrated with evidence-based parenting strategies, and taught across the 10-weeks of the virtual ADAPT parent intervention. A recently completed pilot trial of ADAPT at CAMH and Women's College Hospital supports its feasibility, acceptability and preliminary efficacy. Following intervention development guidelines, we now propose a larger and controlled trial to test whether ADAPT reduces children's emotional and behavioural difficulties more than current gold-standard treatment. Findings will lead to a personalized approach to treatment for depressed parents that takes into account both their and their children's mental health needs.