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Effects of treatment integrity and risk for child abuse on parent training outcomes
Abstract
Reports of child maltreatment have increased substantially over the past twenty years. While research suggests that prevention programs have been effective at reducing abuse, these studies have failed to monitor treatment integrity, thereby threatening internal and external validity. Parent training is frequently cited as an effective component in the treatment and prevention of child abuse, yet less than 15% of parent training experimental studies monitor and report treatment integrity. Additionally, no study has looked at the efficacy of parent training with parents of various degrees of risk for child abuse. The purpose of this quasi experimental study was to compare the effects of low and high levels of treatment integrity and low, moderate, and high levels of risk for child abuse on child abuse potential, child behavior problems and family satisfaction for participants of a parent training program. Treatment integrity of the parent training program was monitored by videotaping training sessions with parents. Parents' level of risk for child abuse was measured using pre-scores on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (Milner, 1986). Results suggest that changes on the dependent measures were similar across high and low levels of treatment integrity. Parents at high risk for child physical abuse reported significant improvement on all dependent measures. While all three abuse risk groups changed in a positive direction, moderate and low risk groups changed differentially across the dependent measures. Results did not find an interaction effect for treatment integrity and parents' level of risk for child abuse. This study contributes to the parent training and child abuse prevention literature by furthering the understanding of: (1) the relationship between integrity and effectiveness of treatment, and (2) prevention program efficacy across parents of various child abuse risk levels. This study also serves as a model for testing cost-effective methods of monitoring treatment implementation at multi-site replications of a prevention program.
Subject Area
Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology|Behaviorial sciences
Recommended Citation
Burke, Raymond Victor, "Effects of treatment integrity and risk for child abuse on parent training outcomes" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9536613.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9536613