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VARYING TREATMENT INTENSITY IN A HOME‐BASED PARENT AND CHILD THERAPY PROGRAM FOR FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY: A RANDOMIZED CLINIC TRIAL
Author(s) -
Carrasco Jennifer M.,
Fox Robert A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.21492
Subject(s) - counterintuitive , poverty , medicine , population , randomized controlled trial , intervention (counseling) , clinical psychology , treatment and control groups , psychology , psychiatry , environmental health , economic growth , pathology , philosophy , surgery , epistemology , economics
This study addressed the question of whether increasing the intensity of a parent and child therapy program would improve results for young children with significant behavior problems from families living in poverty. Children were randomly assigned to either a standard condition or an intensity condition that provided 50% more treatment over a standard 8‐week treatment period. Based on multiple parent‐report, direct observation, and clinician‐report measures of the children and their caregivers, both groups improved on all measures from pretest to posttest and from pretest to follow‐up. No differences in outcomes were found between the standard and intensity groups at posttest or follow‐up. These counterintuitive results are discussed within the parent and child intervention literature. Also, the heuristic potential of this study to encourage continued research with this challenging population is addressed.