Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #114572

Sarah H. Ailey, PhD, RN¹, Julia Muennich Cowell, PhD, RNC, FAAN¹, Diane B. McNaughton, PhD, RN², Louis Fogg, PhD³, and Deborah A. Gross, DNSc, RN¹. (1) College of Nursing, Community and Mental Health Nursing, Rush University, 600 S. Paulina Street, 1080 AAC, Chicago, IL 60612, 312-942-3383, sarah_h_ailey@rush.edu, (2) Department of Community and Mental Health Nursing, Rush University College of Nursing, 600 S. Paulina Street, Suite 1080, Chicago, IL 60612, (3) Community and Mental Health Nursing, Rush University, 600 South Paulina, Chicago, IL 60612

Few studies have addressed mental health status and mental health promotion in preadolescent children. The purpose of this paper is to describe the effectiveness of the Rush Mexican American Problem Solving (Rush MAPS) Program in improving the health conceptions of Mexican American children. Rush MAPS was a clinical trial in which nurses worked with Mexican immigrant mothers and their 4th and 5th grade children in identifying problems and teaching the problem solving steps of Stop, Think and Act. Nurses delivered home visits to mothers and worked with the children in after-school classes The Rush MAPS Model guided the intervention and contains three elements that focus on personal and background factors, interaction factors, and outcome factors. Data are baseline and 20 week follow up (N=143 intervention and N=159 control). Baseline analyses showed that the children's conceptions of family system influenced depression and suicidal ideation through the children's conceptions of emotional health, physical health, friendships, sleep, and self-esteem. Baseline correlations of depression with suicidal ideation was .30 (p.001) and with the various health conceptions ranged between -.44 and -.57. (p<.001). Using repeated measures ANOVA, a trend toward improvement in depression in the intervention versus the control group was identified (p=.12).The children's conceptions of the family system (F=4.87 p=.03), emotional health (F=12.79 p=.001), friendships (F=4.38 p=04), and self esteem (F=3.99 p=.05) significantly improved in the intervention group versus the control group. The results illustrate the importance of targeting the family system and social relationships in mental health promotion interventions for Mexican American children.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the influence of the health conceptions of Mexican-American children on their mental health
• Describe the effect a nursing mother/child mental health prommotion program, the Rush Mexican-American Problem Solving Program (Rush MAPS), on the health conceptions and mental health of Mexican American children
• Discuss the application of results of the Rush MAPS program

Keywords: Child and Adolescent Mental Health, School-Based Health Care

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation