Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

DOI

10.1016/j.jsat.2015.11.008

Publication Title

Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment

Volume

62

Pages

10-19

Abstract

Risk for child abuse was examined prior to and after behavioral couples treatment (BCT) among 61 couples in which one or both parents were diagnosed with substance use disorder (SUD). All couples were residing with one or more school-age children. Mothers and fathers completed pretreatment, post-intervention, and 6 month post-intervention follow-up assessments. Results of piecewise latent growth models tested whether the number of BCT sessions attended and number of days abstinent from drugs and alcohol influenced relationship satisfaction and its growth over time, and in turn if relationship satisfaction and change in relationship satisfaction influenced risk for child abuse. For both mothers and fathers, attending more BCT sessions lead to a direct increase in relationship satisfaction, which in turn led to stronger reductions in risk for child abuse. This effect was maintained from the post-intervention through the 6-month post-intervention follow-up. For fathers, number of days abstinent significantly influenced reduction in child abuse potential at post-intervention via relationship satisfaction. This indirect effect was not present for mothers. The overall benefits of BCT on mothers' and fathers' risk for child abuse suggest that BCT may have promise in reducing risk for child abuse among couples in which one or both parents have SUD.

Comments

This is the author's pre-print version of a work that was published in Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. The final version was published as:

Kelley, M. L., Bravo, A. J., Braitman, A. L., Lawless, A. K., & Lawrence, H. R. (2016). Behavioral Couples Treatment for Substance Use Disorder: Secondary Effects on the Reduction of Risk for Child Abuse. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 62, 10-19. doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2015.11.008

Published version available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2015.11.008

Original Publication Citation

Kelley, M. L., Bravo, A. J., Braitman, A. L., Lawless, A. K., & Lawrence, H. R. (2016). Behavioral Couples Treatment for Substance Use Disorder: Secondary Effects on the Reduction of Risk for Child Abuse. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 62, 10-19. doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2015.11.008

ORCID

Bravo (0000-0002-4630-6449), Braitman (0000-0003-2259-1094)

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