Mental illness and stress

¶ … mood disorders in children., the clinical research group "developed a six-session, manual-driven, multi-family psychoeducation group therapy program (MFPG) for children with mood disorders," (p. 2). This group therapy program was designed by the researchers and therefore subject to biases inherent in their theoretical backgrounds. The participants in the research were selected on the basis of the children having been diagnosed with mood disorders. However, mood disorders include a wide range of symptoms. The researchers would do better to narrow the application of MFPG to participants with specific mood disorders and symptoms. Furthermore, the MFPG was "designed to serve as an adjunct to the on-going medication management and individual/family psychotherapy a child receives (Fristad, Gavazzi, & Soldano, 1998)," (p. 2). The researchers would ideally select participants who are not dependent on medications, as it would be preferable to test the efficacy of the MFPG on its own. Alternatively, the research could focus on children who were all taking the same type of medication for the same condition and for the same period of time. Another alternative would be to tabulate data based on whether or not the child had been taking medication, because the type of medication might influence the outcome of the research. In short, the child's medication history should be treated as a more significant variable.

Thirty-five families is a small group; future research should use a larger sample size. Furthermore, the ages of the children in the experimental group ranged between 8 and 11. Three years does not seem significant but at this stage in pre-adolescent development three years can be a large span. Some females start puberty at the age of ten. The researchers did not take into account the fact that some children at this age are undergoing puberty, and their hormonal changes may affect their mood and therefore the outcome of the study.

According to the researchers, "participants represented a wide range of treatment histories," (p. 3). This wide range should be accounted for, and ideally the participants should have similar treatment histories. Too many intervening variables would interfere with the outcome of the research. It would be preferable to select participants who did not represent a wide range of treatment histories. Moreover, the "children's mood disorder diagnoses and their illness severity...also spanned a wide spectrum," (p. 3). Wide spectrums interfere with the accuracy of the research.

Ethical problems also arise in the methods used in the research. Families were chosen because their parents opted to participate in the study, but it is unclear whether or not the children participated of their own accord or because their parents wanted them to. Referrals welcomed participating families who already had children diagnosed with mental disorders. Some of the families had not yet sought treatment but many already had. Therefore, the study limited its population sample to families already aware of their children's needs. It would be more fruitful to conduct research on families who might not yet be aware of their children's problems.

The researchers only tabulated data related to gender, class, ethnicity, and family structure. Instead, research should seek to find out whether these intervening variables might have had an impact on the dependent variable. Parents from certain cultural backgrounds, for example, might react to the MFPG more than others. Family structure and the gender of the child might also be important variables to consider.