Recruiting

Emotion Focused Family Therapy for Parents of Children With Mental Health Difficulties

Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) is a promising intervention that aims to teach parents advanced skills to support their child's development of emotion skills and increase their adaptive behaviours, potentially leading to improvements in their child's psychological functioning and family functioning more broadly. This randomized controlled trial (RCT; EFFT vs waitlist control) will (1) test the efficacy of a 6-week group EFFT program on parent and child outcomes and (2) examine maintenance of treatment gains…

ClinicalTrials.gov IDNCT05603000

PhaseNA

Enrollment200

SponsorUniversity of Guelph

Age7 Years

SexALL

I'm interested View official listing

Conditions studied

Anxiety, Depression, Behavior Problem

About this study

Interventions

Behavioral: Emotion Focused Family Therapy — The Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) intervention for this study will be delivered to groups of four to ten parents over six weekly sessions of two hours each. The goal of EFFT is to teach and empower parents to coach their child to process the emotions at the source of their mental health symptoms, to increase their child's adaptive behaviours, and to repair emotional injuries within the parent-child relationship. EFFT also targets parents' own emotional challenges that may prevent them from feeling capable or being able to support their child's treatment. Each EFFT session will include introductions, psychoeducation about emotion and psychopathology, introduction of skills, experiential activities (e.g., chair work), open discussion and feedback, and homework activities covering the foci of EFFT: emotion coaching, behaviour coaching, therapeutic apology, and parental emotion blocks.

Primary outcomes

Change in parental psychopathology symptoms at 6 weeks and 4 months (Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months)
Change in child psychopathology symptoms at 6 weeks and 4 months (Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months)
Change in parental emotion regulation at 6 weeks and 4 months (Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months)
Change in child emotion regulation at 6 weeks and 4 months (Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months)
Change in parent-child co-regulation at 6 weeks and 4 months (Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months)
Change in parent-child relationship functioning at 6 weeks and 4 months (Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months)

Eligibility information

Inclusion Criteria: * Parent of child aged 7 to 15 years old with anxiety, depression, or behavioural challenges * Parent of child is willing to participate in intervention * Parent is living at home with the child Exclusion Criteria: * Parent or child not proficient enough in speaking/understanding English to complete measures or EFFT intervention components * Parent or child with a severe mental health disorder (e.g., active suicidality and psychosis) is not considered suitable for the trial intervention due to the clinical need for immediate intervention * Parent or child is actively receiving, or due to receive, intensive psychological intervention focused on cognitive and/or behavioural strategies to intervene with emotional or behavioural difficulties * Parent or child has any disabilities in language, speech or hearing that would interfere with their completion of the EFFT and measures * Parent or child are allergic to adhesive electrode gel use in some tasks (i.e., sodium chloride)

Study locations

Maplewoods Centre for Family Therapy and Child Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 4S7 Canada

Before you participate: Varda Clinical is an independent discovery tool, not the study sponsor or a medical provider. Eligibility can only be determined by the official study team. Discuss potential risks and benefits with a qualified healthcare professional.

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov. Record last refreshed by Varda Clinical: 2026-09-27.