Child mental health disorders represent a major burden to public health in Australia due to high prevalence rates, the widespread impact across domains, and the potential for difficulties to persist into adolescence and adulthood. Extensive evidence exists for the use of parent management training and cognitive behavioural therapy to treat difficulties experienced by children; however, a proportion of children do not benefit as expected from these treatments. The use of complementary therapeutic approaches and variations to the mode and intensity of existing intervention is warranted; family inpatient units represent a unique example of this. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a well-established Australian inpatient unit that admits the whole family, for children aged 12 years and younger referred with mental health, behavioural, or emotional difficulties. This study's longitudinal within-subject study design utilised routinely collected outcome data from the systemic clinical outcome and routine evaluation, 15 item (SCORE-15)—a valid and reliable measure of family functioning—from a sample of 980 participants attending the Family Residential Program. This study reported significant improvement in family functioning across all outcome variables between baseline and post-intervention, with no variables returning to pre-intervention levels at follow-up. Clinically significant changes in overall family functioning showed that 37% of participant scores moved from the clinical range at baseline to the nonclinical range post-intervention. This study represents the first empirical evaluation of the Family Residential Program, and the reported results provide compelling evidence for the program to effect improvement in family functioning for families with long-standing and severe difficulties. Poor rates of questionnaire completion following intervention frequent the literature base of family inpatient units, with low post-intervention (56%) and follow-up (12%) rates evident in this study. This study uniquely contributes to the growing evidence base of family inpatient units using rigorous evaluation methods.

中文翻译：

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珊瑚树家庭服务家庭住院部的有效性：探索家庭功能变化的纵向研究

由于患病率高、跨领域影响广泛以及可能持续到青春期和成年期，儿童心理健康障碍是澳大利亚公共卫生的主要负担。大量证据表明，可以使用家长管理培训和认知行为疗法来治疗儿童遇到的困难；然而，一部分儿童并没有像预期那样从这些治疗中受益。有必要使用补充治疗方法以及改变现有干预的模式和强度；家庭住院病房就是一个独特的例子。本研究的目的是评估一个完善的澳大利亚住院部的有效性，该住院部可容纳全家人，对于 12 岁及以下因心理健康问题而转诊的儿童，行为或情感困难。本研究的纵向受试者内研究设计利用了从系统临床结果和常规评估中常规收集的结果数据，15 项 (SCORE-15)——家庭功能的有效且可靠的衡量标准——来自参加家庭住宅计划的 980 名参与者的样本。这项研究报告称，基线和干预后所有结果变量的家庭功能均显着改善，随访时没有变量恢复到干预前的水平。整体家庭功能的临床显着变化表明，37% 的参与者评分从基线时的临床范围转移到干预后的非临床范围。这项研究代表了对家庭住宅计划的首次实证评估，报告的结果提供了令人信服的证据，证明该方案能够改善长期存在严重困难的家庭的家庭功能。家庭住院病房的文献资料显示，干预后问卷完成率较低，本研究中干预后（56%）和随访率（12%）明显较低。这项研究使用严格的评估方法，为家庭住院单位不断增长的证据基础做出了独特的贡献。