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ViewAttendees 2

Symposia

Culture / Ethnicity / Race

Session: Equity-Focused, Community-Engaged, Implementation Minded Intervention Development and Adaptation

3 - (SYM 127) Adaptation of a Family Strengthening and Mental Health Intervention to Reduce Health Disparities in Latinx Families

Sunday, November 19, 2023
8:30 AM – 10:00 AM PST
Location: Willipa (512), Level 5



Background: Latinx individuals experience worse mental health status and treatment outcomes compared to White individuals. Family and marital stress are drivers of mental health decline in Latinx immigrant families. While evidence-based mental health interventions exist, Latinx individuals have lower access to culturally-appropriate services. To address this need, we are adapting Coping Together (CT) for Latinx families--a family-based intervention to improve relationships and mental health. 


Methods: Our systematic cultural and contextual adaptation of CT entails: (1) determining key targets for intervention through interviews with community partners; (2) presenting community partners with the unadapted CT intervention to obtain their perceptions of core vs modifiable components and preferences for an adapted version; and (3) manualizing the Latinx adapted CT.


Results: Preliminary analyses revealed that stressors identified by Latinx community partners include discrimination, acculturation-related difficulties, intergenerational gaps, and unequal distribution of household responsibilities. Sources of resilience encompass local services, parent-child connectedness, spirituality, connection to Latinx culture, and friendships with those with shared experiences. Latinx families experience conflict over culture and language related to generational differences; lack of communication and closeness; and problems related to depression, anxiety, and substance use. These themes point to the need for family-based interventions to include content pertaining to helping families in distress develop skills to manage conflict and other relationship issues that impact mental health and the well-being of family systems. Findings are consistent with the existing CT targets, yet the Latinx adaptation will likely include coping and relationship-building skills specific to these needs.  



Discussion:  Our approach to intervention adaptation emphasizes fostering authentic community relationships to tap into community knowledge, which is ensuring linguistic and conceptual equivalence among the unadapted and adapted versions of CT.