The FRIENDS for Life (FFL) programme, a school-based anxiety prevention programme, targets anxiety reduction and resiliency development in elementary school-aged children (Barrett, Sonderegger & Xenos, 2003). In the context of equivocal effectiveness findings regarding FFL in Canadian schools, the present study assessed pre–post changes in anxiety, self-esteem, and prosocial behaviour in a school system in Northeastern Canada. To yield further insight to the potential sources of equivocal FFL effectiveness findings, we also evaluated FFL treatment integrity (TI) and social validity (SV). Few studies have assessed FFL TI at the level of identifying which programme sessions, or within-session content, have or have not been adhered to (Higgins & O'Sullivan S, 2015). Similarly, few studies have provided detailed programme SV data or perceived programme benefits by children and parents. TI and SV can provide programme data beyond anxiety reduction, which is key in prevention programming research, as pre–post changes are challenging to detect in ‘healthy’ samples (Durlak & Wells, 1997). Treatment outcome, TI, and SV data were collected from classrooms across 10 elementary schools administering FFL. The sample included 210 child and 108 parent participants; post-testing occurred 1 week following FFL programme completion. Findings indicated significant decreases from pre- to post-test in child-reported anxiety and self-esteem but no changes in prosocial behaviours. Findings suggest that low TI ratings may have impacted anxiety, self-esteem, and prosocial behaviour results, and that child-reported SV may be more related to programme outcomes than parent-reported SV. Implications for FFL programme developers and future FFL evaluation studies are discussed.

中文翻译：

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FRIENDS for Life 项目在加拿大东北部学校系统中的治疗完整性和社会有效性

FRIENDS for Life (FFL) 计划是一项以学校为基础的焦虑预防计划，旨在减少小学适龄儿童的焦虑和恢复能力（Barrett、Sonderegger 和 Xenos，2003 年）。在关于加拿大学校 FFL 的模棱两可的有效性调查结果的背景下，本研究评估了加拿大东北部学校系统中焦虑、自尊和亲社会行为的事后变化。为了进一步了解模棱两可的 FFL 有效性结果的潜在来源，我们还评估了 FFL 治疗完整性 (TI) 和社会效度 (SV)。很少有研究评估 FFL TI 在确定哪些程序会话或会话内内容已遵守或未遵守的水平（Higgins 和 O'Sullivan S，2015 年）。相似地，很少有研究提供详细的计划 SV 数据或儿童和父母认为的计划收益。TI 和 SV 可以提供超出焦虑减少的程序数据，这是预防程序研究的关键，因为在“健康”样本中检测前后变化具有挑战性（Durlak & Wells，1997）。从管理 FFL 的 10 所小学的教室收集治疗结果、TI 和 SV 数据。样本包括 210 名儿童和 108 名家长参与者；后测试发生在 FFL 计划完成后 1 周。结果表明，从测试前到测试后，儿童报告的焦虑和自尊显着下降，但亲社会行为没有变化。研究结果表明，低 TI 评级可能会影响焦虑、自尊和亲社会行为的结果，并且孩子报告的 SV 可能比父母报告的 SV 与项目结果的相关性更高。讨论了对 FFL 程序开发人员和未来 FFL 评估研究的影响。