Evaluating the Effectiveness of Multifamily Group Therapy in Child Abuse and Neglect

Autor: Maura O'Keefe, William Meezan
Rok vydání: 1998
Předmět:
Zdroj: Research on Social Work Practice. 8:330-353
ISSN: 1552-7581
1049-7315
DOI: 10.1177/104973159800800306
Popis: This article compares the effectiveness of multifamily group therapy (MFGT) with traditional family therapy in the treatment of abusing and neglectingfamilies. Eighty-one families were ran domly assigned to the MFGT group or a comparison group where they received traditional fam ily therapy. Comparison of group means was conducted at pretest and at the close of service on child abuse potential and numerous measures of family functioning. Within-group changes were also examined between pretest and posttest. At posttest, families receiving MFGT reported sig nificantly lower child abuse potential scores and significantly better social support scores than families in the comparison group. Additionally, within-group comparisons show that the MFGT group significantly improved in a larger number of areas of family functioning than the comparison group. The findings argue for the expanded use of MFGT with maltreating families and its adoption of a greater number of family service agencies dealing with this population.
Databáze: OpenAIRE