COS-P for Parents of Children Referred to Child Psychiatric Services

Region Syddanmark

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Child Behavior Problem

Treatments: Other: Treatment as Usual; Other: Circle of Security-Parenting

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03578016

2008-58-0035 (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Background:The quality of attachment is greatly influenced by parental sensitivity. Attachment based interventions are designed to promote parental sensitivity, to change parental mental representations and to improve understanding of the developmental needs of the child. Very few studies have investigated the effect of attachment-based interventions on psychiatric symptoms in children. Targeting parental sensitivity and the parent-child interaction might have an important impact on psychiatric symptoms in a clinical sample of children referred to child psychiatric services.

Objectives: The primary objective is to investigate whether Circle of Security-Parenting (COS-P) has an effect on parental sensitivity in parents of children referred to child psychiatric services. The secondary objectives are to investigate the effect on children's behavioral and emotional symptoms and the parental stress and reflective functioning after 10 weeks of intervention and at the 24 week follow-up. The study is also exploring the effect of parental attachment style, parental stress and parental psychopathology on the effect of the intervention.

Methods: The trial will include 128 families of children (age 3-8 years) who are referred to child psychiatric services in a randomized and controlled design. Included families will be randomized to COS-P+ Treatment as Usual (TAU) or TAU only.

Perspectives: Considering the important impact of the quality of the parent-child relationship on the child's well-being, it is essential to target it in interventions and to investigate the relation with psychiatric symptoms. Generally there is a lack of interventions targeting parental sensitivity in psychiatric child populations. Working with the parents on the child-parent relation, might have an important impact on their children's current psychiatric symptoms and could additionally prevent future psychopathology.

Enrollment: 128 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 to 8 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Children who score equal or above the 93d percentile on CBCL-total score
• Score above 93d percentile on the CBCL- ODD or aggression scale
• Informed consent from both custody.

Exclusion criteria

For children:

• autism spectrum disorders
• serious psychopathology requiring immediate clinical attention
• head injury or verified neurological disease
• intelligence quotient (IQ) <80
• medical condition, requiring treatment
• no informed consent from custody

For parents:

• a diagnosis of schizophrenia
• bipolar disorder
• known substance abuse
• severe intellectual impairment
• suicide attempt in the past

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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128 participants in 2 patient groups

Circle of Security-Parenting

Experimental group

Description:

10 weekly, manualized group sessions at the clinic

Treatment:

Other: Circle of Security-Parenting

Other: Treatment as Usual

Treatment as Usual (TAU)

Other group

Description:

TAU consists of clinical assessment and treatment.

Treatment:

Other: Treatment as Usual