Home-Based Parent–Child Interaction Therapy to Prevent Child Maltreatment: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Mariëlle E. Abrahamse, Vionna M. W. Tsang and Ramón J. L. Lindauer
Additional contact information
Mariëlle E. Abrahamse: Levvel, Academic Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Meibergdreef 5, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Vionna M. W. Tsang: Levvel, Academic Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Meibergdreef 5, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Ramón J. L. Lindauer: Levvel, Academic Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Meibergdreef 5, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 16, 1-15

Abstract: High treatment attrition and limited reach of mental health services for at-risk families remains an important problem in order to effectively address the global concern of child maltreatment and child disruptive behavior problems. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a home-based and time-limited adaptation of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Twenty families with children (70% boys) aged between three and seven years were randomly assigned to an immediate treatment group (IT, n = 10) or a waitlist control group (WL, n = 10). After receiving treatment and compared to mothers in the WL group, mothers in the IT group reported fewer child behavior problems and more improved parenting skills. Although initial analyses revealed no significant differences, additional analyses showed a significant decrease in the primary outcome of the study, namely child abuse potential, between the baseline and follow-up assessment for the total treated sample. A low treatment attrition rate (15%) was found, indicating higher accessibility of treatment for families. Findings suggest that the brief home-based PCIT is a potentially effective intervention to prevent child maltreatment and disruptive behavior problems in at-risk families. Results also reinforce the importance of addressing the specific needs of these families to increase treatment effectiveness.

Keywords: PCIT; home-based treatment; attrition; prevention child maltreatment; disruptive behavior problems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8244/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8244/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:16:p:8244-:d:608099

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().