title: Parents' evaluation of a preventive intervention following the sudden, violent deaths of their children.
abstract: A preventive intervention for 156 bereaved parents whose 12- to 28-year-old children died by accident, homicide, or suicide was tested using a multisite longitudinal cohort pretest/posttest experimental design.  Reported here are bereaved parents' evaluations of the two-dimensional support program.  Problem-focused support was rated by parents' perceptions of readiness, relevance, timing, and understanding of the information and skills presented.  Emotion-focused support was rated by the identification of I. Yalom's (1985) therapeutic group factors and group leader/clinician support.  Over 70% of all the person/session responses showed that both support dimensions were rated at 6 or 7 on a 7-point scale (e.g., 0 = not at all relevant, 7 = very relevant.)  Additional exploratory analyses examined the extent to which 5 participant and treatment characteristics influenced parents' evaluations.  Clinical implications and future research directions are suggested.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosocial and Community Health, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Baugher
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lohan
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Scheideman
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Heerwagen
authors.forename: L C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tillery
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Grover
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001601:Bereavement; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003643:Death; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008875:Middle Aged; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011316:Preventive Psychiatry; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011615:Psychotherapy, Group; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014754:Violence