The January 2023 issue of JAMA carried a report of a study conducted by Daniel Bagner and colleagues who tested an Internet-delivered, parent-child interaction therapy (iPCIT) model for children aged up to three years with developmental delay (DD). Despite research and clinical support for the parent-child-interaction therapy (PCIT) model and other clinic-based parenting interventions, this telehealth-specific research team sought to bridge service delivery barriers that limit the accessibility and acceptability of children’s mental health services. Direct obstacles to reaching families in need include limited transportation, limited numbers of regional clinicians, unavailability of non-English language services, and stigma-related concerns about mental health clinic visits. Although research support for telehealth-specific interventions is beginning to appear for pediatric telehealth specialty areas such as autism, controlled studies of telehealth with young children with developmental disorders and their families are limited.
Pediatric Telehealth iPCIT Participants & Procedures
The pediatric telehealth researchers sought to test the use of video conferencing with families of children by conducting a randomized clinical trial of 150 children with DD and their primary caregivers.They worked with youth from marginalized, low-income, and remote communities who are particularly underserved. Such families tend to have lower session attendance and higher dropout rates. These underserved families are particularly at risk because behavior problems in young children with developmental delay (DD) represent a significant public health concern. Behavioral challenges are of concern, as children with DD show three times the risk of clinically significant externalizing problems than their typically developing counterparts. Externalizing problems in children with DD are associated with several functional impairments that can lead to high economic costs when untreated. Caregivers also are at risk of high levels of caregiving stress related to the severity of child behavior problems. Finding a way to deliver effective treatment to such families is important.
This study used videoconferencing…
