Medical Family Therapy in Healthcare: Baseline Findings from a Hungarian Integrated Program IInd part

Abstract

This paper is the second part of a two-part series and presents baseline findings from a Hungarian programme integrated into a healthcare setting, building on the theoretical framework of medical family therapy outlined in the first paper. The study was conducted among families raising young children with autism and was implemented at the Bethesda Early Childhood Intervention and Diagnostic Service (KIDSz) Pedagogical Service, with support from the MOL – New Europe Foundation’s Kozma Imre Child Healing Plus Programme. A total of 80 families participated in the baseline assessment; the analyses were based primarily on self-report questionnaire data provided by mothers and fathers. Family functioning was assessed using the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD), subjective well-being with the WHO-5 Well-Being Index, and perceived stress with the four-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4). FAD scores were compared with Hungarian validation data, while WHO-5 and PSS-4 scores were compared with population reference values from the Hungarostudy 2021 survey. The families presented with substantial psychological and family-related burden at the outset of therapy. Among the FAD subscales, the Roles and General Functioning domains showed particular vulnerability, while parental well-being was lower and perceived stress was higher than the corresponding population reference values. These findings suggest that free-of-charge family therapy integrated into healthcare services may represent a relevant response to the complex needs of families raising young children with autism.