A systematic review of randomized controlled trials of interventions designed to decrease child abuse in high-risk families

Abstract

Child abuse is a global problem, and parents with histories of childhood abuse are at increased risk of abusing their offspring. The objective of this systematic review is to provide a clear overview of the existing literature of randomized controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to prevent child abuse. PubMed, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Sociological Abstracts, and CINAHL were systematically searched and expanded by hand search. This review includes all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of interventions designed to prevent abuse among mothers identified as high-risk. Of the eight studies identified, only three found statistically significant reductions in abuse by any measure, and only two found reductions in incidents reported to child protective services. While much has been written about child abuse in high-risk families, few RCTs have been performed. Only home visitation has a significant evidence base for reducing child abuse, and the findings vary considerably. Also, data from low- and middle-income countries are limited.

Association of adverse childhood experiences and health risk behaviors among young adults visiting a regional primary healthcare center, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…Programs to prevent adverse childhood experiences directly could also have a significant impact in reducing long-term related health sequellae. For example, parenting programs have been found to be effective in several studies [ 37 ].…”

Pathways between childhood/adolescent adversity, adolescent socioeconomic status, and long-term cardiovascular disease risk in young adulthood

“…As a result, the adolescent maternal relationship may be a target for intervention in adolescents who have experienced early adversity to lower CVD risk by reducing young adult risk factors that are affected by this social relationship in adolescence. However, forms of adversity perpetrated by the mother (e.g., child maltreatment) may be particularly difficult targets for interventions, although there are some evidence-based approaches that have been shown to prevent child maltreatment (Levey et al, 2017; MacMillan et al, 2009). These evidence-based approaches may also have downstream impacts on CVD risk.…”

Family therapy and systemic interventions for child‐focused problems: the current evidence base

“…Systematic narrative reviews and meta-analyses concur that for physical child abuse and neglect, effective therapy is family-based, structured, extends over periods of at least six months, is often conducted on a home-visiting basis, and addresses specific problems in relevant subsystems including parenting skills deficits, children's posttraumatic adjustment problems, and the overall supportiveness of the family and social network (Henggeler and Schaeffer, 2016;Kennedy et al, 2016;Levey et al, 2017;Skowron and Reinemann, 2005;Timmer and Urquiza, 2014;Vlahovicova et al, 2017). Cognitive behavioural family therapy (Kolko et al, 2014;Kolko and Swenson, 2002;Rynyon and Deblinger, 2013), parent-child interaction therapy (Kennedy, 2016;McNeil and Hembree-Kigin, 2011), and multisystemic therapy for child abuse and neglect (Henggeler and Schaeffer, 2016;Swenson and Schaeffer, 2014) are manualized approaches to family-based treatment which have been shown in randomized controlled trials to reduce the risk of further physical child abuse.…”