Efficacy or Chaos? Parent–Child Interaction Therapy in Maltreating Populations: A Review of Research

Abstract

Child abuse remains a serious and expensive social problem in the United States. Few evidence-based treatments (EBTs) exist for at-risk families and/or maltreating families where neglect or abuse has occurred, limiting the ability of social service agencies to comply with legislative mandates to use EBTs with clients. One promising intervention, parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), has been tested in 11 separate trials with this population. This review of research on PCIT with abusive adults found that overall PCIT is an appropriate, efficacious intervention method to prevent future maltreatment by targeting parenting skills and child externalizing behaviors. These findings must be taken with caution, since the key factor to determine efficacy is completion of treatment, and all the studies involved showed significant problems with sample attrition. While the current studies are promising, there is a need for research that focuses on measuring parental sensitivity and attachment levels, explores use in the foster and adoptive communities, and studies that use tertiary subjects to serve as unbiased reporters of perceived levels of behavioral changes.

An Evaluation of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy With and Without Motivational Enhancement to Reduce Attrition

“…The findings of this study add to the burgeoning literature showing that PCIT is an effective intervention for improving parenting practices, and reducing child behavior problems and parental stress among multiproblem and maltreating families (Batzer, Berg, Godinet, Stotzer, 2015;Chaffin et al, 2011;Thomas & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007, 2011Timmer et al, 2011). However, attrition from PCIT was still higher than ideal even with a motivational enhancement.…”

The Effectiveness of Parent Training Programs for Child Maltreatment and Their Components: A Meta-Analysis

“…In additional searches, these keywords were combined with the full names and abbreviations of several well-known parent training programs, such as Triple P, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), and Incredible Years (IY). Finally, the references of relevant review studies [5,7,18,25,26,33,36,37,38,39] were examined to search for additional studies that may have been missed in the electronic search. The searches resulted in 3713 studies.…”

Processing Proximal Processes: What Bronfenbrenner Meant, What He Didn't Mean, and What He Should Have Meant

“…There are, unfortunately, environments that are predictable across time and space in which parent–child or peer interactions (or, indeed, interactions between a developing child and the objects in the environment) are not only negative but also becoming increasingly complex in their negativity. Abusive parent–child and partner relationships can be of this type, and in more recent years social media interactions can be of this type (e.g., Batzer, Berg, Godinet, & Stotzer, 2018; Capaldi et al, 2009; Charalampous et al, 2018; Drapkin, McCrady, Swingle, & Epstein, 2005; Kowalski & Limber, 2013; Ma, Lai, & Wan, 2015; Tippett & Wolke, 2015). We might also consider interactions in other microsystems beyond the family such as the school, for instance, the ways teachers often treat children who are tracked low in schools; mind‐numbing interactions on a regular basis over an extended period of time surely count as engines of development (e.g., Quin, 2017; Peterson, Rubie‐Davies, Osborne, & Sibley, 2016; Urhahne, 2015), even if one might be hard‐pressed to find much in the way of increased complexity.…”