Effectiveness evaluation of a culturally adapted family skills training program for Chinese American adolescents and their families

This study aimed to identify the major risk and protective factors for youth behavioral health problems and examine the effectiveness of a culturally adapted Strengthening Families Program (SFP) among Chinese immigrant youth and families living in inner city San Francisco.;A quasi-experimental 3 groups by 2 repeated measures ANOVA analysis design was used in the major study. Fifty-three Chinese immigrant parents of youth ages 11 to 18 years old were recruited to participate in the 14-session culturally adapted SFP for Chinese families. The comparison groups included 89 Latino, Pacific Islander and African American families participating in the SFP 12-16 Years, and 1,917 families from SFP 12-16 Years database. The program implementation was done by culturally matched group leaders trained in 2-day workshops followed up with site visits and fidelity checks by the program developer. The same SFP parent questionnaire was used for all comparison groups including 18 parenting, family, and child outcomes based on standardized parenting (Alabama), family (Moos), and child (Kellam POCA) tests except for language translation. Post hoc ANOVA analytic comparisons were conducted on mean changes and p values.;The Chinese families were found to be statistically at higher risk than the non-Chinese families in five variables and at lower risk for two variables. By posttest, 17 out of the 18 outcomes were statistically significant. Also the mean changes and effect sizes were larger for 56% of the outcomes in the Chinese sample than the San Francisco non-Chinese families; however, 75% of the improvements in the Chinese sample were larger than the non-Chinese families in SFP database. For example, the effect size of positive parenting was larger than both of the comparison groups (d = .73 for the Chinese sample vs. .66 for San Francisco non-Chinese families vs. .50 for the SFP norms).;The results indicate high demand and promising preventive effects of evidence-based parenting and family skills training programs for Chinese families on promoting youth positive emotional and behavioral development and highlight the effectiveness of the Chinese culturally adapted version of SFP, which can potentially have a large influence in benefiting Chinese immigrant families in other areas.