Exploring Effects of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy on Chronic Inflammation in Child Welfare-Involved Parents
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Date
2021-11-23
Authors
Wells, Jessica
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), an intensive parent-coaching program, has shown powerful behavioral effects on child welfare-involved families. PCIT is known to improve both parenting and child behavior as well as reduce child abuse recidivism among parents who have already abused their child. However, potential benefits of PCIT on improving parents’ physical health have not been explored. Given the well-documented link between psychosocial stress and physical health, psychosocially disadvantaged families such as those involved with child welfare are at heightened risk for poor health outcomes. One key pathway whereby psychosocial stress leads to disease is through chronic peripheral inflammation, the immune system’s response to repeated, stress-related activation. Several behavioral interventions have shown promise in reducing chronic inflammation in adults. However, no study to date has examined the effects of a parenting intervention on parental chronic inflammation.
In the current study, I aimed to examine whether PCIT may lower a biomarker of chronic inflammation, C-reactive protein (CRP), among a sample of child welfare-involved parents. I further aimed to explore parent risk factors that may moderate treatment effects. Results provided no evidence that PCIT lowered parent CRP, and tested moderators were also not significant. I review these findings in the context of existing literature on behavioral interventions that may impact stress reactivity and chronic inflammation. Future directions are discussed, including recommendations for future studies to measure inflammation across a full panel of inflammatory markers, to use longitudinal designs to assess inflammation changes as they emerge over time, and to employ study designs that will allow for potential psychological and physiological treatment mechanisms to be assessed.