Jared S. Warren

Rates of adolescent suicide and anxiety and depressive disorders are high, underscoring the critical role of schools in supporting students’ mental health needs (Centers for Disease Control & Preve...

Background: Adolescent subjective well-being is a topic that has gained significant focus over recent years. This focus is reflected in forming measurement tools and interventions to better understand better and improve adolescent mental health. While these steps are necessary, problems still exist regarding adolescent subjective well-being measurement. Notably, current measurement tools are limited in their content, applicability to various populations, and accessibility. Aims: This paper examines the psychometric properties of the Survey on Flourishing (SURF) when used with an adolescent sample from the United States. Method: A sample of 334 participants participated in the present study. We examined the reliability and validity of the SURF by examining its internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. We also examined the factor structure of the SURF using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results: The SURF demonstrated high internal consistency (α = 0.92), a strong positive correlation with convergent measures, and a weak negative correlation with a discriminant measure. A one-factor model best fits the observed data. Conclusion: The SURF demonstrated good psychometric properties and addressed several shortcomings in current measures. Preliminary data suggests the SURF may be a useful and practical measure of adolescent subjective well-being.

We examined how youth self-efficacy, motivation for treatment, social support, and therapeutic alliance relate to psychotherapy outcomes of patients receiving services at outpatient community clinics. We hypothesized that (1) these variables would increase throughout the course of therapy, (2) baseline scores would predict initial ratings of distress, (3) baseline scores would predict the rate of change in symptoms throughout treatment, and (4) changes in these variables would be associated with symptom change over the course of treatment. Participants included 150 adolescents at community outpatient treatment centers. Data was collected prior to beginning treatment, and every three weeks afterward until termination. We used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to address our hypotheses. We found that (1) youth ratings of self-efficacy, social support, and motivation increased throughout treatment, (2) initial self-efficacy and social support were associated with initial levels of distress, (3) ratings of youth self-efficacy at intake predicted its rate of change over therapy, and (4) changes in all variables during therapy were related to lower distress at termination. Results suggest that these variables may affect the trajectory and course of treatment in community-based treatment settings. These results may have implications for treatment planning to maximize treatment effectiveness.

Objective: The purpose of this study was (1) to examine whether three domains of a parent's functioning—parent distress, interpersonal relationships, and social role performance—changed over the course of their child's treatment, (2) to examine how these factors as measured at intake predicted youth progress in psychotherapy, and (3) to examine whether changes in these parent factors over the course of youth psychotherapy were associated with changes in youth symptoms.Method: Participants were 339 youth, ages 4–17 and their parents from a community outpatient treatment setting undergoing usual care. Parent and child outcomes were examined across five time points over the course of child treatment. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the relationship between parent domains and youth progress in therapy.Results: Results suggested that parent domains significantly predicted their child's symptoms at intake as well as change in psychotherapy. In addition, parent domains improved over the course of youth treatment and the progression of these changes was related to the progression of changes in youth scores across the course of treatment.Conclusions: The results of this study highlight the important relationship between youth and parent functioning in the context of treatment of youth mental health issues.