Promoting Strong Latino Families Within an Emerging Immigration Context: Results of a Replication and Extension Trial of a Culturally Adapted Preventive Intervention.

Abstract

We conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Nuestras Familias: Andando Entre Culturas, a culturally adapted evidence-based parent management training (PMT) preventive intervention, with a sample of 241 Spanish-speaking Latino parents and their middle-school-aged children residing in an emerging immigration context. Scientifically rigorous studies of programs designed for this setting are rare. The intervention was designed to promote prosocial parenting practices and to prevent youth substance use and related problem behaviors. The RCT was designed as an extension and replication of a prior trial (Martinez & Eddy in Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 841-851, 2005) which was also conducted in an emerging immigration context. Two key issues were of primary interest: intervention feasibility and intervention efficacy. Intervention feasibility was assessed through weekly session attendance, participation, and parent-reported session satisfaction as well as overall program satisfaction. Intervention efficacy was assessed by comparing changes within the intervention and control groups on parenting practices and youth adjustment from pre-intervention baseline to post-intervention termination 6months later. Results provided support for the feasibility of delivering the intervention on a large scale within communities. Consistent with the prior trial, positive effects of the intervention were detected on parenting practices and on youth outcomes. Differential effects of the intervention were detected based on youth gender and nativity status, such that girls benefited the most with respect to tobacco use likelihood, and foreign-born youth benefited the most with respect to decreased depressive symptoms.Findings provide additional evidence for Nuestras Familias as an efficacious family-based intervention for Latino families within communities that are sites of emerging immigration in terms of both improving parenting practices and decreasing risk for youth substance use and related problem behaviors.