The maintenance effect of cognitive-behavioural treatment groups for the Chinese parents of children with intellectual disabilities in Melbourne, Australia: a 6-month follow-up study.
CBT parent groups give Chinese carers of children with ID big stress relief that still holds six months later.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Leung et al. (2011) ran eight-week CBT groups for Chinese-speaking parents of children with intellectual disabilities. They met in Melbourne, talked through stress and thinking traps, then came back six months later for a check-up.
No control group—just parents before and after.
What they found
Six months later the parents still felt much less stress and their mood stayed better. Their old harsh thoughts about parenting stayed low.
How this fits with other research
Li et al. (2023) pooled 25 later trials and found the same big stress drop, so the Melbourne result was not a one-off.
Leung et al. (2013) swapped CBT for Group Triple P and still saw six-month gains, showing the format, not the brand, drives the staying power.
Tan et al. (2024) replaced CBT with online mindfulness and still cut stress the same amount—proof that any calm-thinking parent group can work.
Why it matters
You can tell Chinese-speaking carers that a short CBT group gives relief that lasts at least half a year. If face-to-face CBT is hard to find, swap in Triple P or even an online mindfulness course and expect similar wins. Add a six-month booster text and you have a low-cost way to keep parents engaged and steady.
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Schedule a six-month follow-up text or call to every parent who finishes your CBT or Triple P group.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Caring for a child with intellectual disability can be stressful. No data on the longer-term effects of cognitive-behavioural treatment (CBT) on parents from a Chinese-speaking background who have children with intellectual disabilities are available in the literature. This study attempted to fill this research gap by examining the maintenance effect of CBT among the Chinese parents of such children in Melbourne, Australia. METHOD: Thirty-nine participants took part in our CBT groups and attended follow-up meetings. A questionnaire comprising four instruments, the Parenting Stress Index (PS) - Parent Domain, General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), Abbreviated Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire (Q-LES-Q-18) and Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS), was administered to the participants at the pre- and post-test stage and at the 6-month follow-up. RESULTS: One-way repeated-measures analyses of variance revealed significant time and group effects in the PS (F(2,27) = 16.93, P < 0.001), Q-LES-Q-18 (F(2,27) = 15.98, P < 0.001), GHQ-12 (F(2,27) = 81.93, P < 0.001) and DAS (F(2,27) = 15.50, P < 0.001) scores at the three measurement times. The participants continued to maintain significant improvements in mental health and quality of life and declines in the severity of parenting stress and dysfunctional attitudes at the 6-month follow-up. Effect size analyses revealed mostly large differences in the foregoing measurements (Cohen's d = 0.76-2.18) between the pre-test and 6-month follow-up. Employing a cut-off score of 3/4 in the GHQ-12 to identify at-risk and not-at-risk cases, approximately 90.5% of the participants could be classified as not-at-risk at the follow-up. Lastly, regression analyses showed that changes in DAS scores significantly predicted changes in the GHQ-12 and Q-LES-Q-18 scores at the follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides preliminary evidence of the 6-month maintenance effect of CBT groups for the Melbourne-resident Chinese parents of children with intellectual disabilities.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2011 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2011.01431.x