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Heterogeneity of Treatment Effects of PMTO in Foster Care: A Latent Profile Transition Analysis

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Abstract

Parent Management Training-Oregon (PMTO) model has demonstrated significantly improvements in parental functioning and child’s social skills and socio-emotional well-being among families whose children were placed in foster care. Yet, there is a dearth of studies examining for whom PMTO works the best. The aim of this study was to examine the potential familial typologies in relation to parental and children’s functioning and how these typologies change after participating in PMTO. The sample consisted of 918 children in foster care and their biological parents recruited in September 2012-2014 in a Midwestern state and randomized to in-home PMTO (n = 461) or services as usual (SAU) (n = 457). Latent profile transition analysis examines how participation in PMTO influences changes in children’s behavior and their biological parent’s functioning over time while placed in out-of-home care. PMTO families reporting high parental functioning and children’s social-emotional outcomes were more likely to move to a higher functioning class (OR = 0.22, p = 0.01) than SAU families all characteristics equal. Yet, when families experienced poor parental functioning of all four types, PMTO was not helpful in improving parent’s functioning and children’s problem behaviors (OR = 4.41, p = 0.01). This study provides empirical support for child welfare agencies to sustain the PMTO program to improve children’s emotional and behavioral health.

Highlights

  • The high functioning PMTO families were more likely to stay in a higher functioning class than control families.

  • PMTO did not improve parent’s functioning and children’s behaviors for families with extremely poor parental functioning.

  • PMTO still changed children’s behavior for families with high parental functioning but high child behavioral problems.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their great appreciation to Drs. Becci Akin and Thomas McDonald for their supports during the development of this research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Health Science Research Institute, University of California Merced, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, CA, 95343, USA

    Yueqi Yan

  2. School of Social Work, University of Texas Austin, 1925 San Jacinto Blvd, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Susan De Luca

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  1. Yueqi Yan
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Correspondence to Yueqi Yan.

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Human subjects’ approval was obtained from the University of Kansas Institutional Review Board. The clinical trial for this research project was preregistered with the National Institute of Health at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02152618).

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Informed consent was obtained from the individual participants included in the study.

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Yan, Y., De Luca, S. Heterogeneity of Treatment Effects of PMTO in Foster Care: A Latent Profile Transition Analysis. J Child Fam Stud 30, 17–28 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01798-y

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