Presenter: Sarah Romack – Psychology
Faculty Mentor(s): Elizabeth Skowron
Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation
Child maltreatment is a substantial public health issue that creates emotional and psychological impacts on victims and is related to emotion regulation deficits in caregivers. Although Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is effective at reducing child-maltreating behavior and improving positive parenting strategies, little research has been conducted on how it strengthens parents’ emotion regulation skills in the process. To address this, the current study utilized a behavioral measure of parent emotion regulation (the Emotional Go/No-Go task) to identify subgroups of 88 child welfare- involved parents receiving PCIT whose emotion regulation skills changed the most across treatment. An exploratory analysis was then conducted to identify pre-treatment predictors of change in parent emotion regulation scores. Measures of parent stress, readiness for change, mental health (specifically depression and anxiety measures), and child behavioral scores were measured. Parent mental health and readiness for change were found to significantly predict high levels of change in parents’ emotion regulation skills. Analyzing the factors that differentiate at-risk parents’ response to PCIT treatment, particularly in terms of their emotion regulation skills, is vital in the current efforts to provide effective interventions and better understand how to match individual parents to effective treatments that will hinder child maltreatment.