Secondary benefits of family member participation in treatments for childhood disorders: A multilevel meta-analytic review.

Abstract

Family-based treatments provided around the world for children with mental health, physical health, and developmental disorders often convey secondary mental health benefits to caregivers and siblings who participate in those treatments. Yet, there are no systematic evaluations of these secondary benefits, suggesting that current estimates of the effectiveness of family treatments do not accurately represent the full scope of benefits to participants. In the present study, we use a three-level meta-analysis to summarize the secondary benefits for caregivers (n = 19,895) and siblings (n = 784) who participated in the treatment of a child family member. Results from 128 studies across many countries reveal multiple strengths in the research literature, including frequent use of standardized treatments, random assignment of participants to treatment conditions, and comparison of family-based treatments to usual services. This meta-analysis examines 412 effect sizes and shows that family-based treatments produce small but statistically significant secondary benefits (d = 0.25) compared to individually focused treatments and conditions. In addition, the magnitude of these secondary benefits is relatively consistent across a range of possible moderators, including characteristics of the participants, clinical interventions, study methods, and measures. The only significant moderator of family-based treatments is caregiver gender, such that male caregivers report fewer secondary benefits than do female caregivers. Our findings suggest that there is a pressing need for researchers to routinely measure secondary benefits in studies evaluating family-based treatments of childhood disorders. Furthermore, researchers of these treatments should report family structure, key demographic information (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning families), and cultural values (e.g., familismo) in their studies. Moreover, administrators, policymakers, and treatment providers would do well to consider the secondary benefits and cost savings of interventions that are delivered to families of children with a wide range of disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).