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.