Differential Effects of a Military Parenting Program on Child Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior: A Latent Profile Analysis

Abstract

Some children who experience a parental deployment evince high rates of internalizing and externalizing behavior in the years following that parent’s return home. This dissertation explored the risk for mental health symptoms in military children in the years following a parent’s deployment, as well as the risk factors and outcomes associated with different profile membership. In the first phase, I studied heterogeneity in children’s internalizing symptoms and externalizing behavior among 336 military youth who experienced a parental deployment since 2001 using a finite number of discrete mental health profiles with latent profile analysis (LPA), as well as risk factors associated with membership to different risk profiles. Results indicated that current parental mental health problems were associated with child membership in the higher risk profile relative to the low risk profile, but that deployment was not significantly associated with profile membership. In the second phase, I assessed whether parent assignment to a preventive parenting intervention developed for military families, After Deployment Adaptive Parenting Tools intervention (ADAPT; Gewirtz, Pinna, Hanson, & Brockberg, 2014) was associated with improvement in child internalizing and externalizing behavior at one year follow-up, and whether differential treatment effects emerged according to a child’s mental health profile at baseline. Results showed significantly lower anxiety and conduct problems for the intervention group relative to the control group that differed according to baseline profile membership.