Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an empirically supported treatment for conduct-disordered young children in which parents learn the skills of child-directed interaction (CDI) in the first phase of treatment and parent-directed interaction (PDI) in the second. This study examined the long-term treatment outcome for 13 families who had participated in a treatment study examining the effects of treatment phase sequence one and two years earlier. Seven families were in the CDI-first treatment group and six families were in the PDI-first group. Immediately after treatment, 11 of the 13 families had achieved clinically significant change on both observational and parent report measures, and there were no significant differences between treatment groups. Treatment effects were maintained at one-year follow-up for 8 of the 13 families, and at two-year follow-up for 9 families, with no long-term impact of phase sequence evident at either follow-up assessment. This study represents the first long-term follow-up of families treated with PCIT. Results suggest that this treatment may be successful in achieving long-term gains for most families of conduct-disordered preschoolers and that phase sequence has little impact on treatment outcome.

Child Study Lab
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology
University of Florida
P.O. Box 100165
Gainesville, FL 32610
Phone (352) 265-0680 x 46878
E-mail: seyberg@hp.ufl.edu
© 2001 University of Florida
Last updated: March 07, 2006.