Psychol Trauma. 2025 Dec 4. doi: 10.1037/tra0002071. Online ahead of print.
OBJECTIVE: Latin American immigrant families with young children may endure traumas in home countries and throughout their journey to the United States. Current evidence suggests that unresolved traumas adversely affect both parents and children in relation to parenting capacities, positive relationships, and healthy child development, necessitating culturally responsive interventions. This study aimed to assess clinical outcomes of trauma-focused child-parent psychotherapy (CPP) for Latin American immigrant mothers with young children living in the northeastern United States.
METHOD: Eighty-three parent-child dyads participated in the community-based intervention and baseline evaluation. Participants enrolled in an application of CPP that addressed child trauma and development, parental trauma symptoms, and enhancing parent-child relationships. Fifty-five parents completed pre- and postassessments concerning both parental and child outcomes. We conducted paired t tests to assess changes in outcomes between pre- and postintervention among participants and applied repeated-measures linear effects models to examine whether changes in outcomes varied by participants’ baseline posttraumatic stress disorder risk.
RESULTS: Results from paired t test (n = 55) demonstrated significant decrease in maternal mental health symptoms and trauma-related stress, as well as improvements in parental reflective functioning, family protective factors, and child socioemotional development. Subgroup analysis based on posttraumatic stress disorder risk groups suggested that participants who were at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder showed greater improvements in psychosocial outcomes and parenting capacities, in contrast to their counterparts.
CONCLUSIONS: Results from this study indicate the feasibility and efficacy of an application of CPP for Latin American immigrant families with young children. Future research is needed to better understand the implementation of interventions to support mental health and parenting for immigrant populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
PubMed:41343379 | DOI:10.1037/tra0002071