What you need to know
Family Connections is a group program that is intended to improve the lives of caregivers of people with borderline personality disorder. Researchers conducted a study to evaluate the impact of the program on the lives of caregivers of youth with a variety of mental health challenges. The results show improvements over time that were statistically significant in all areas, except caregivers’ perceptions of their interactions with the teen.
What is this research about?
Caring for a young person who has a mental illness can be difficult and confusing. The Family Connections program was created to help family members of people with borderline personality disorder live better lives. It provides them with information and research on mental health and family functioning, coping skills, family skills and social support. Until now, there has been no research on the effects of this program on family members of people with other types of mental health challenges.
The program involves 12 weekly 90-minute sessions in the form of a skills training group. These sessions focus on psychoeducation, individual skills and relationship skills (to promote emotional well-being), family skills (to improve the quality of family relationships and interactions), effective self-expression and problem management skills.
What did the researchers do?
The study was part of the Ontario-based Research and Action for Teens project. The study evaluated the change over time for caregivers of teens with mental health challenges who were enrolled in a Family Connections intervention in Toronto, Ottawa or Thunder Bay.
The caregivers completed questionnaires at the start of the program, halfway through the training, at the end of the training and 12 weeks after completion.
The questionnaires looked at a variety of factors that might impact caregivers, including caregiver burden, parenting stress, sense of control over one’s life, ability to cope and sense of grief, as well as the caregiver’s reports of the child’s behaviour.
Each site used a different facilitation model. Toronto had a peer facilitator lead the group along with a clinician. Peer facilitators led the Ottawa group, while the Thunder Bay site had clinicians lead the group.
What did the researchers find?
The makeup of the participant groups in the three sites was mostly the same, except for sex (males made up only 4.5% of the group in Thunder Bay, compared to almost a third of the groups in Ottawa and Toronto).
Every outcome in every location improved over time, apart from the parent stress index. For the Thunder Bay site, specifically, the caregiver burden did not change over time. The researchers think it is possible that this might be because the Thunder Bay site used a clinician-led model instead of peer facilitation. It could also have been because of the location, demographic features or some other variable.
Limitations of the research
The researchers highlighted several limitations. The study did not have a control group to help determine if the changes were due to participation in the program. It also was not possible to determine if the differences in effects among the sites were due to the facilitation approach, the geographical location, the demographic makeup of the group or other variables. Also, the sample of participants may not have been representative of the general population of caregivers the program is intended to help.
How can you use this research?
This study may be of use to anyone interested in developing programming to support caregivers of children with mental health challenges.
About the researchers
Tali Z. Boritz,1,2 Natasha Y. Sheikhan,1,3 Lisa D. Hawke,1,2 Shelley F. McMain,1,2 Joanna Henderson1,2
- Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Tali Z. Boritz and Natasha Y. Sheikhan are joint first authors.