|
Abstract
|
Stress and its management influence the nature of family interactions. Harmful family interactions, including violent interactions, are likely affected by mismanaged stress. This paper reviews scientific evidence on stress concepts, sources, and treatment strategies. Particular emphasis is given to the potential of stress-management preventive intervention for reducing the risk of family violence. Based on a study with teenage parents, the authors describe procedures and results from clinical stress-management preventive intervention. Study findings noted post-test and 3- month follow-up improvements in favor of preventive intervention subjects relative to test-only control subjects on measures of personal and social support, cognitive problem solving, self-reinforcement, parenting competence and care, and interpersonal performance. Consumer satisfaction from teenage parents who received intervention lent additional support to the value of stress-management preventive methods. The paper discusses the implications, limitations, and future directions of stress-management preventive intervention to lower risks of family violence.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this study by Schinke et al. was to review the empirical evidence on stress concepts, sources and treatments, and to study the outcome of stress management strategies that could help reduce the risk of family violence. The study was based upon a social learning approach to stress-management preventive intervention.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors began with a review of the empirical evidence on the concepts, sources and treatments of stress. Following this, the study employed a quasi-experimental, cross-sectional design with a pre-test and post-test comparison of an experimental and a control group, and a three-month follow-up test. A non-probability sample of 70 adolescent mothers in a school continuation program were all pre-tested and then placed into either of the two groups. A program of 12 one-hour group sessions of preventive intervention was applied for the experimental group, with subsequent post-testing of all the subjects as well as retesting 3 months later. At each of the testing sessions, subjects completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Generating Options Test, the Self-Reinforcement Attitudes Questionnaire, the Social Support Inventory, the Personal Support Scale, the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale, the Good Care Scale and the Pearlin Mastery Scale. Subjects also completed behavioral role-playing tests at pre-test and post-test, and were videotaped as they participated in three situations. The subjects were required either to request help with childcare, to counter criticism about childrearing or to demand payments for child support. At the measurement that occurred three months post-intervention, those subjects who had been in the experimental group also completed a consumer satisfaction questionnaire, to determine if the stress-management preventive intervention training had been useful or would be useful in the future. Stress-management training included the practice and coaching of skills such as problem solving, self-instruction, self-reinforcement, interpersonal communication, relaxation and social supports development. Analyses included Chi-Square comparison of demographic data and multiple analysis of covariance on outcome data, using pre-test results as covariates for the post-test and the follow-up scores.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors reviewed the empirical literature about stress, and concluded that theories of stress emphasized the many biological, psychological and social factors involved in its development. Sources of stress have been found to be traumatic single events, such as death, or chronic struggles such as family disintegration. Most treatment strategies were found to involve psychosocial approaches, with multiple interventions involved in the stress-management prevention process. Results of the authors research with adolescent mothers showed that no differences existed between those in the experimental and those in the control group on factors such as age, education, income source and amount, marital status, parental status, age of offspring and living arrangements. Examination of the post-test scores showed that subjects in the experimental group had more positive scores than those in the control group on two of the scales - the Social Support Inventory and the Generating Options Test - as well as showing greater levels of assertiveness, persistence and calm in the role-playing tests. At the three-month measurement, experimental group subjects were found to score more positively than those in the control group on most of the scales - the Self-Esteem Scale, the Generating Options Test, the Self-Reinforcement questionnaire, the Social Support Inventory, the Personal Support Scale, the Parenting Competence Scale and the Good Care Scale. Also at three-months after treatment, the experimental group rated the usefulness of the stress-management training as 5.6, the value as 4.9 and the future applicability as 5.9. The author concluded that the study provided an optimistic view of the effects of stress-management training as a preventive intervention.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors recommended that stress-management preventive intervention be considered as a useful tool in clinical research and practice in the area of family violence to offer high risk families a less violent array of coping and interpersonal skills. Future research could include the isolation of particular factors that lie at the heart of stress-management preventive intervention, and could uncover the most parsimonious and effective interventions. The authors concluded that better methods are necessary to identify families at high risk for violence who would most benefit from stress-management training.
EVALUATION:
This study provides an interesting glimpse into the effectiveness of stress-management training as a method of preventive intervention. However, the internal validity of the study must be questioned - the study did not actually measure whether or not the training was able to influence the capacity of the subjects for violence. All that was accomplished was the demonstration that stress training could increase levels of self-esteem and better interpersonal behavior. No measures of present perpetration of violence were even included in the study, leading one to conclude that the study provides no evidence of any relationship between stress-management training and a reduction in levels of violence. Also, the small and specialized nature of the sample precludes wide generalizability. A much more thorough discussion of the results and of the implications of the findings would also have been useful. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - Juvenile Female
KW - Juvenile Mother
KW - Juvenile Parent
KW - At Risk Parent
KW - At Risk Juvenile
KW - At Risk Female
KW - Stress Management
KW - Domestic Violence Prevention
KW - Juvenile Stress
KW - Offender Stress
KW - Social Learning Theory
KW - Social Support
KW - Parenting Practices
KW - Parenting Skills
KW - Female Depression
KW - Juvenile Depression
KW - Parent Depression
KW - Parent Training
KW - Child Abuse Prevention
KW - Child Physical Abuse Prevention
KW - Juvenile Self-Esteem
KW - Female Self-Esteem |