An interventional study of Emotion Focused Family Therapy in Anxiety, Depression and Behavior Problem, sponsored by University of Guelph. Recruiting at 1 site in Canada. Open to participants aged 7 Years to 15 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-01-23.
Sponsored by University of Guelph · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
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 up to four months post-intervention.
This randomized controlled trial (RCT) will test the efficacy of a 6-week Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) group program on parent and child outcomes, compared to a waitlist control. Families will be randomized to either the EFFT group treatment or a waitlist. The RCT will evaluate changes in parent functioning, child functioning, and parent-child relationship functioning. A 4-month follow-up will test whether any changes from pre-to-post intervention are maintained at 4 months.
The RCT will also test proposed mechanisms of change (parent-child relationship quality, family functioning) and moderators of treatment effectiveness (parental stress).
8,577 studies on the registry are indexed under Depression; 1,720 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 200 is above the median of 81 across 7,063 interventional studies indexed under Depression.
Browse Depression studies →University of Guelph is the lead sponsor of 70 studies on the registry; 5 are open to participants now.
Compared within Depression, this study's primary condition as ClinicalTrials.gg classifies it; the registry's first condition term is Anxiety Disorders. The counts are of registry records indexed under each term, refreshed daily. How we classify →
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Exclusion Criteria:
No treatment will be administered to participants in this arm until after the 4-month follow-up in-lab assessment is completed.
Treatment (6-week group Emotion Focused Family Therapy) will be administered to participants in this arm.
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.
Also known as: EFFT
Change in parental psychopathology symptoms at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured through the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), a 10-item self report measure of psychological symptoms that parents will complete. Parents will rate the extent to which they are affected by various psychopathology symptoms on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (None of the time) to 5 (All of the time), with greater total scores (range = 10-50) indicating more severe psychopathology.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in child psychopathology symptoms at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured through the Behavior and Feelings Survey (BFS), a 12-item measure of child psychopathology symptoms to be completed by both parents (parent-report) and children (youth-report). Parents and children will rate items on a five-point Likert scale from 0 (Not a problem) to 4 (A very big problem), with greater scores (Internalizing subscale range = 0-24; Externalizing subscale range = 0-24; Total score range = 0-48) indicating more severe psychopathology.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in parental emotion regulation at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured through the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), a 36-item self-report measure of emotion regulation difficulties to be completed by parents. Parents will indicate the frequency with which they experience difficulties with emotion regulation on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (Almost never) to 5 (Almost always), with greater total scores (range = 36-180) indicating greater difficulties with emotion regulation.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in child emotion regulation at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured through the Negative Emotionality subscale of the Child and Adolescent Dispositions Scale (CADS), a scale of child emotion regulation to be completed by parents (parent-report) and children (youth-report). Parents and children will rate the seven Negative Emotionality items on a four-point Likert scale from 1 (Not at all) to 4 (Very much/very often) with greater scores (range = 7-28) indicating poorer emotion regulation.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in parent-child co-regulation at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured by parent-child synchrony of heart rate variability during the completion of two lab tasks together (conflict discussion and puzzle task).
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in parent-child relationship functioning at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured by having parents and their children participate in two lab tasks together (conflict discussion and puzzle task) and coding for behavioural observations.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in parental emotion socialization at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured through the Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES), a 12-item self-report measure of parental emotion parenting practices in response to children's expression of negative emotion. Responses are divided into six subscales representing six distinct types of parental responses. The responses will be grouped in two overall scores: Supportive (Expressive Encouragement, Problem-Focused, and Emotion-Focused Reactions) and Unsupportive (Punitive, Minimizing, and Distress Reactions) practices. Parents will rate the likelihood that they would respond in these distinct ways on a seven-point Likert scale from 1 (Very unlikely) to 7 (Very likely), with greater overall scores (range = 1-7) indicating greater levels of each type of parental response.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in parental emotion blocks at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured through the Caregiver Traps Scale (CTS), a 14-item self-report measure of parental emotional blocks. Parents will rate each item on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Not likely) to 7 (Extremely Likely), with higher total scores (range = 14-98) indicating greater levels of parental emotional blocks.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in parental self-efficacy at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured through the Me as a Parent Questionnaire (MaaP), a 16-item self-report measure of parental self-efficacy. Parents will rate the degree to which they agree with statements about their feelings of competence in their parent role on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree), with greater total scores (range = 16-80) indicating greater parental self-efficacy.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Fidelity of EFFT program
This outcome will be measured via audiorecording of group sessions. Fidelity scores will be calculated based on content fidelity - i.e., The degree to which providers implemented the key EFFT components, including: behaviour coaching, emotion coaching, parental emotion blocks, therapeutic apology.
Time frame: Throughout intervention over 6 weeks
Change in perceived parental stress at 6 weeks and 4 months
Parents' perceived level of stress related to tasks associated with parenting will be assessed via the Parental Stress Scale. The Parental Stress Scale is an 18-item parent-report measure that assesses perceived parental stress (sample item: "Caring for my child(ren) sometimes takes more time and energy than I have to give") while taking into account positive and negative facets of parenting. The three subscales that comprise the measure (positive emotional benefits of parenting, sense of enrichment and personal fulfillment, and negative components of parenting) can be summed to form a composite score. Items are rated on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 4 (Strongly Agree) with lower scores (range = 18-90) indicating lower levels of parenting stress.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Parental treatment satisfaction
Parental treatment satisfaction will be assessed using the parent-report of the Parent/Child Satisfaction Scales, a parent-report measure of satisfaction with child-oriented mental health services. The parent-report measure (sample item: "To what extent has our program met your child's needs?") has shown good internal consistency and test-retest reliability in prior samples of parents of clinic-referred children. Items are rated on a four-point Likert scale from 1 (Quite dissatisfied) to 4 (Very satisfied), with greater total scores (range = 8-32) indicative of higher overall treatment satisfaction.
Time frame: At 6 weeks
Parent-reported change in familial functioning at 6 weeks and 4 months
Parent report of familial functioning will be assessed via the McMaster Family Assessment Device, a 60-item measure of broad family functioning that can be completed by any measure of the family system. The measure has subscales that assess particular facets of family functioning (e.g., affective responsiveness; "we cry openly"), which can be summed to form a composite score. Items are rated on a four-point Likert scale from 1 (Strongly Agree) to 4 (Strongly Disagree). Item responses are summed and divided by the number of items in the measure to compute a total score (range = 1-4), with lower total scores indicating more adaptive family functioning.
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Change in physiological arousal at 6 weeks and 4 months
This outcome will be measured by parent and child skin conductance levels during the completion of two lab tasks together (conflict discussion and puzzle task).
Time frame: Change at 6 weeks; Change at 4 months
Plan to share: No
Started Oct 2022 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Mar 2027, 53 months after the start.
Of 3,468 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Depression, half reached primary completion within 21 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 10 and three quarters within 41. This study's planned 53 months is above that.
Counting every sponsor, half of 3,566 studies reached it within 21 months; a quarter within 9 and three quarters within 41.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
Eligibility is decided by the study team. Share this record with your doctor or contact the team directly.
Contact study teamGet an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.
Sign in to followQuestions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.
Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.
Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.
University of Guelph