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Linking empirically based theory and evaluation: The family bereavement program
Author(s) -
Sandler Irwin N.,
West Stephen G.,
Baca Louise,
Pillow David R.,
Gersten Joanne C.,
Rogosch Fred,
Virdin Lynn,
Beals Janette,
Reynolds Kim D.,
Kallgren Carl,
Tein Jenn-Yun,
Kriege Gary,
Cole Eloise,
Ramirez Rafael
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/bf00937756
Subject(s) - mental health , psychology , health psychology , grief , social support , intervention (counseling) , public health , clinical psychology , program evaluation , developmental psychology , psychiatry , social psychology , medicine , nursing , public administration , political science
Conclusion We have illustrated how our “small theory” (Lipsey, 1990) of bereavement guided the development and evaluation of a preventive intervention for bereaved children. Our small theory, based on prior empirical research, enabled us to identify family processes that appeared to mediate the effects of parental death on child mental health. Our intervention was designed to attempt to change these processes. The evaluation of our experimental trial of the intervention assessed changes on these processes as well as the more distal mental health outcomes. The experimental trial showed some‐what encouraging results, in terms of the program's ability to modify the warmth of the parent–child relationship and to decrease symptomatology in the adolescent children. We also obtained further empirical support for our underlying theoretical model. Finally, implications for redesign of the program were derived from assessing the adequacy of the program components to change each of the mediators in the theoretical model.