Treatment effect on psychosocial functioning of juveniles with harmful sexual behavior: A multilevel meta-analysis

Abstract

This multilevel meta-analysis examined the effects of treatment for juveniles with harmful sexual behavior on psychosocial functioning, and the potential moderating effects of outcome, treatment, participant, and study characteristics. In total, 23 studies, comprising 31 independent samples and 1342 participants, yielded 362 effect sizes (Cohen's d). A moderate overall effect size was found of d = 0.60, indicating that groups receiving treatment achieved an estimated relative improvement in psychosocial functioning of 33%. Type of outcome did moderate the effect of treatment, indicating that effects on atypical sexual arousal and empathy (a trend) were smaller, compared to effects on other outcomes. Most prominently, studies of weak quality produced larger effect sizes. Unexpectedly, non-established treatments had more effect than did established treatments, which may be explained by the use of less rigorous study designs. Treatment groups with a higher percentage of juveniles with similar age victims or mixed type problem behavior also yielded larger effect sizes. Lastly, evaluation of treatment effects by professionals produced higher effect sizes, compared to other sources of information (e.g., adolescent self-report). Although only a marginal to no indication was found for publication bias by means of funnel plot analysis of the distribution of effect sizes, articles published in peer reviewed journals showed relatively large effect sizes. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed.

What Kind of Therapy Works With Juveniles Who Have Sexually Offended? A Randomized-Controlled Trial of Two Versions of a Specialized Cognitive Behavioral Outpatient Treatment Program

“…Our data show several improvements over time that were independent from treatment approach. These findings are in line with previous treatment studies in outpatient and residential care settings (e.g., Rehfuss et al, 2013; Ter Beek, Kuiper et al, 2018; Viljoen et al, 2017) and support both treatments as useful from a JSO perspective. Nevertheless, without a comparison group, any pre- versus post-test differences may be due to regression to the mean.…”

“…Although several meta-analyses have identified small to moderate effect size treatment benefits for reducing sexual recidivism and higher effect size benefits for reducing general recidivism in JSOs (Reitzel & Carbonell, 2006; Schmucker & Lösel, 2015; Ter Beek, Spruit et al, 2018), a recent meta-analytic investigation of treatment studies involving either randomized assignment or the establishment of baseline comparability of both case and control groups found no significant treatment effects (Kettrey & Lipsey, 2018). Results of another recent meta-analysis suggested a moderate effect size treatment benefit for improving psychosocial functioning in JSOs (Ter Beek, Kuiper et al, 2018); however, the authors claimed that study quality was generally poor and that more methodologically rigorous studies had smaller effect sizes. Thus, it remains unclear if and how treatment programs can best produce positive outcomes for JSOs.…”

The Relationship between Moral Climate of Sports and the Moral Behavior of Young Athletes: A Multilevel Meta-analysis

“…The authors used R (version 3.5.0) within the foreign- and metafor-package, employing a multilevel random-effects model (Assink and Wibbelink 2016), which is often used for multilevel analyses (e.g., Assink et al 2018; Spruit et al 2016a, b; Ter Beek et al 2018). To estimate the model parameters, the restricted maximum likelihood estimate (REML) was applied (Van den Noortgate and Onghena 2003).…”

Approaches to Assessment and Intervention With Children and Young People Who Engage in Harmful Sexual Behavior: A Scoping Review

“…A meta-analysis reporting on 23 studies measuring the effect of treatment on the psycho-social functioning of young people who had engaged in sexually harmful behavior revealed significant differences in research design, outcome measures used, treatment type, treatment duration, and the characteristics of the young people ( Beek et al, 2018 ). Such differences enable ways to map but not compare approaches with any level of certainty.…”