Therapist-Family Interactions in Functional Family Therapy for Drug Abusing Youth

描述(由申请人提供)：拟议研究的主要目标是试行测试一种新开发的观察性编码工具，用于青少年药物滥用的功能性家庭治疗课程中治疗师与家庭互动的研究序列。该仪器的名称是功能性家庭治疗编码和评定量表(FFT CARS)。FFT CARS已经经历了第一轮试点测试，研究了特定类型的治疗师行为的总体比率或比例，并将其与青少年和家庭结果联系起来。目前的项目将在FFT CARS的这一初步研究的基础上，通过纳入与FFT会议期间家庭成员的行为有关的观察代码来建立和扩展FFT CARS，从而允许检查理论上相关的治疗师-家庭互动序列，这些序列可以预测临床结果。提出的项目的具体目标是：1.使用已建立的基于家庭的观察编码系统来编码FFT会话中的家庭成员的行为，其中治疗师的行为已经使用FFT汽车进行了编码；2.将关于FFT会话中的家庭行为的编码数据与在先前对FFT汽车的初步研究中获得的关于相同FFT会话中的治疗师行为的现有编码数据进行合并。3.分析合并的数据以经验性地识别在FFT会话期间治疗师家庭互动的序列。4.建立某种类型的FFT中的会话序列与青少年和家庭临床结果之间的统计联系模型。 公共卫生相关性：拟议的研究旨在促进功能性家庭治疗(FFT)的发展和完善，FFT是一种已被证明有效的青少年药物滥用治疗方法。这种临床过程-结果研究可能有助于促进和推动快速傅立叶变换在社区青少年治疗环境中的传播。这些进展可能会增加FFT在公共卫生层面对青少年及其家庭的药物滥用问题产生有利影响的可能性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching objective of the proposed research is to pilot test a newly developed observational coding instrument for study sequences of therapist-family interaction in sessions of Functional Family Therapy for adolescent drug abuse. The name of the instrument is the Functional Family Therapy Coding and Rating Scale (FFT CARS). The FFT CARS has undergone an initial round of pilot testing in which overall rates or proportions of specific types of therapist behavior have been studies and linked with adolescent and family outcomes. The current project would build upon and extend this pilot study of the FFT CARS by incorporating observational codes pertaining to the behavior of the family members during the sessions of FFT so to allow for the examination of theoretically relevant sequences of therapist-family interaction that may predict clinical outcomes. The specific aims of the propose project are: 1. To use an established family-based observational coding system to code the behavior of family members in sessions of FFT in which the behavior of the therapists have already been coded using the FFT CARS; 2. Merge coded data on family behavior in sessions of FFT with existing coded data on therapist behavior in the same FFT sessions obtained in a prior pilot study of the FFT CARS. 3. Analyze the merged data to empirically identify sequences of therapist family interaction during sessions of FFT. 4. Model statistical linkages between certain type's in-session sequences in FFT and adolescent and family clinical outcomes. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed research is designed to contribute to the development and refinement of Functional Family Therapy (FFT), a treatment of proven efficacy for adolescent substance abuse. Such clinical process-outcome studies may help to facilitate and propel the dissemination of FFT in community-based adolescent treatment settings. These advances could increase the likelihood that FFT will have a favorable impact at a public health level on drug-abuse problems of adolescents and their families.