Reducing Depressive Symptoms Among Latina Mothers of Autistic Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Peer-mentor parent training delivered by promotoras meaningfully lowers depressive symptoms in Latina mothers of autistic children.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Yu et al. (2024) tested a program called Parents Taking Action. Latina moms of kids with autism met weekly with trained promotoras—other Latina moms who had walked the same road.
The study used a coin-flip design. Half the moms got the peer mentoring right away. The other half waited. Researchers tracked mom mood for four months.
What they found
Moms who worked with the promotoras felt less depressed. The drop was big enough to matter in everyday life. The gains stayed strong four months later.
How this fits with other research
Laposa et al. (2017) ran a similar coin-flip test with Black and Hispanic caregivers. They also used peer guides and saw stress go down. Their study came first, so Yu et al. (2024) builds on that win.
Kaiser et al. (2022) tried a like-minded program with Black parents. Satisfaction and empowerment shot up, but there was no control group. The new RCT adds the control that was missing.
Estes et al. (2014) looked at toddler-age kids and found parent coaching kept stress flat. Pei-Lung et al. shift the lens to moms of any-age child and show actual mood lift, not just stress hold-steady.
Why it matters
You now have an RCT that says culturally matched peer mentors ease mom depression. If you serve Latino families, you can add promotoras to the plan. One concrete step: pair each new Latina mom with a graduate mom for six weekly coffee-chat sessions. The chats cut depression, and the evidence says the benefit sticks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study examines the intervention effect of a culturally tailored parent education program in reducing depressive symptoms among Latina mothers of autistic children. In this two-site randomized waitlist-control study (n = 109 mother-child dyads), a peer-to-peer mentoring (promotora) model was used to deliver an intervention that was designed to increase mothers' self-efficacy and use of evidence-based strategies. We assessed mothers' depressive symptom (CES-D) scores at three time points and used linear mixed models to determine whether their scores significantly changed from baseline to postintervention (Time 2) and at 4 months postintervention (Time 3). Results show that mothers in the intervention group reported a significant decrease in mean depressive symptom scores at Time 2 and that the effect was maintained at Time 3 with intermediate to medium effect sizes. There were no differences in results across sites. Findings suggest that Parents Taking Action, a culturally tailored intervention led by peer mentors, showed a significant effect both immediately after the intervention and 4 months postintervention in reducing depressive symptoms among Latina mothers of autistic children.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2024 · doi:10.1352/1944-7558-129.4.294