The Long and the Short of It: A Comparison of the Effectiveness of Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT).

Research shows that parenting interventions struggle with keeping clients in treatment. The purpose of this study was to compare attrition and rates of improvement in caregiver-child dyads participating in either Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE), a brief, 7-session parenting intervention or Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) over a 7-week period. Participants were 204 caregiver-child dyads referred to either PC-CARE (N = 69) or PCIT (N = 135) between 2016 and 2019. Children were aged 2-7 years, referred for treatment by county Behavioral Health Services, and Medicaid funded. Findings showed that PC-CARE participants were 2.5 times more likely than PCIT participants to complete 7 sessions, all other things being equal, and showed significantly greater rates of improvement during this timeframe in reported child behavior problems and parenting stress. In conclusion, compared with PCIT, PC-CARE showed greater retention and rate of improvement in child and parent outcomes over a comparable time period.

Improving Children's Behavior in Seven Sessions: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) for Children Aged 2-10 Years.

Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) is a brief intervention for children with externalizing behaviors designed to address issues with their access to and retention in treatment. A growing evidence base of open trials and comparison studies support PC-CARE's benefits, but no randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of its effectiveness exist. The current study presents the first RCT of PC-CARE, a 7-session dyadic parenting intervention (trial number removed for blind review). Participants included a racially/ethnically diverse sample of 49 children (29% female) aged 2-10 years and their caregivers. Participants were randomly assigned to PC-CARE or waitlist control. Families participating in PC-CARE showed greater reductions in children's externalizing behaviors, improvements in children's adaptive skills, declines in parental stress, and increases in parents' positive communication skills, compared to families on the waitlist. The results of this first RCT of PC-CARE support the effectiveness of this brief intervention in improving children's behaviors.