A review of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT): Applications for youth anxiety

Anxiety disorders are one of the most prevalent disorders in youth and can have substantial negative impacts when left untreated. Parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) is an evidence-based approach for treating externalizing problems within youth. However, PCIT may have a unique advantage for treating anxiety symptoms and disorders because of its accessibility for younger children that may be too young to benefit from traditional cognitive behavioral therapy. The parent training aspect of PCIT could also give added support to parents by teaching them more effective ways to cope with their child’s anxiety symptoms. The current meta-analysis aimed to determine the efficacy of PCIT and adaptations to PCIT in reducing anxious symptomology in youth. PsycINFO and PubMed were searched for relevant articles and yielded 15 articles that met inclusion criteria. Statistical analyses showed that PCIT overall was significantly more effective at reducing anxious symptomology than control groups. In addition, participants who had comorbid diagnoses in addition to anxiety had comparable reductions in anxiety as participants who did not have comorbid diagnoses. Participants with subclinical anxiety levels also demonstrated significant reductions in anxiety symptoms overall, suggesting that PCIT may be a promising early intervention for halting the progression toward disorder-threshold anxiety. Overall, this meta-analysis provides preliminary evidence that PCIT is an effective intervention for in ameliorating anxiety symptoms in youth.