title: Children of divorce-coping with divorce: A randomized control trial of an online prevention program for youth experiencing parental divorce.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Evaluate an online coping skills program to prevent mental health problems in children and adolescents from divorced or separated families.
  
  
  METHODS
  Children ages 11-16 (N = 147) whose families had filed for divorce were recruited using public court records. Participants were blocked by risk-score and randomly assigned to either a control (Internet self-study condition, Best of the Net (BTN) or the experimental intervention, Children of Divorce-Coping With Divorce (CoD-CoD), a 5-module highly interactive online program to promote effective coping skills. Program effects were tested on measures of children's self-reported coping and parent and youth reports of children's mental health problems.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant main effects indicated that youth in CoD-CoD improved more on self-reported emotional problems relative to BTN youth (d = .37) and had a lower rate of clinically significant self-reported mental health problems (OR = .58, p = .04). A significant Baseline × Treatment interaction indicated that the 55% of youth with highest baseline problems improved more than those in BTN on their self-report of total mental health problems. A significant interaction effect indicated that CoD-CoD improved youth coping efficacy for the 30% of those with the lowest baseline coping efficacy. For the 10% of youth with lowest parent-reported risk at baseline, those who received BTN had lower problems than CoD-CoD participants.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CoD-CoD was effective in reducing youth-reported mental health problems and coping efficacy particularly for high risk youth. Parent-report indicated that, relative to BTN, CoD-CoD had a negative effect on mental health problems for a small group with the lowest risk.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Human Services, SUNY Broome Community College.
authors.forename: Jesse L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Boring
authors.affiliation: REACH Institute, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University.
authors.forename: Irwin N
authors.initials: IN
authors.lastname: Sandler
authors.affiliation: REACH Institute, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University.
authors.forename: Jenn-Yun
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Tein
authors.affiliation: College of Letters and Sciences, Arizona State University.
authors.forename: John J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Horan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College.
authors.forename: Clorinda E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Vélez
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D004243:Divorce / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*