Innovations in Practice: Brief behavioral parent training for children with impairing ADHD characteristics - a pilot study

Marijn Nijboer; Roos van Doornik; Annabeth P Groenman; Saskia van der Oord; Rianne Hornstra; Barbara van den Hoofdakker; Tycho J Dekkers

doi:10.1111/camh.12743

Innovations in Practice: Brief behavioral parent training for children with impairing ADHD characteristics - a pilot study

Child Adolesc Ment Health. 2025 Feb;30(1):83-88. doi: 10.1111/camh.12743. Epub 2024 Dec 7.

Authors

Marijn Nijboer¹, Roos van Doornik^{1

2}, Annabeth P Groenman^{1

2

3}, Saskia van der Oord⁴, Rianne Hornstra^{1

2}, Barbara van den Hoofdakker^{1

5}, Tycho J Dekkers^{1

2

6

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Accare Child Study Centre, Groningen, The Netherlands.
² Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
³ Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴ Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁵ Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
⁶ Levvel, Academic Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁷ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Centres (AUMC), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁸ Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Abstract

Background: Behavioral parent training (BPT) is a well-established intervention for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but most programs are long, which may limit their accessibility. This could be improved by making programs shorter. Here, we studied (1) the feasibility of a new brief BPT program and its procedures, and (2) pre-post changes in daily rated problem behaviors (primary outcome), children's disruptive behaviors, ADHD/ODD characteristics, impairment, and parents' sense of parenting competence (secondary outcomes).

Methods: We conducted a nonrandomized pilot study including parents of 28 children (4-12 years) with impaired ADHD characteristics. We examined treatment dropout, parent and therapist satisfaction, recruitment rates, study drop-out, measurement response and completion rates, acceptability of measurements according to parents, and treatment fidelity. Pre-post changes in the treatment group were compared to those in a historical control group using mixed model analysis, except for those outcomes that were not assessed in the control group. Within-group differences were analyzed for all outcomes.

Results: Feasibility of the program and study procedures were good. Treatment dropout was 14.2%, parents and therapists were satisfied with the new program. We recruited 1.5 participants per month, study dropout was 10.7%, response/completion rates ranged from 82% to 100%, measurements were acceptable for parents, and treatment fidelity was 96%. We found substantial within-group changes (d's = .68-.77) and medium-sized between-group changes (d's = .46-.48) on daily rated problem behaviors. We observed no changes on most of the secondary outcomes, except for disruptive behaviors and impairment.

Conclusion: Our newly developed brief BPT program was feasible and we observed improvements in children's daily-rated problem behaviors. These results suggest that brief BPT might be beneficial for clinical practice if the findings are confirmed in large-scale randomized controlled trials.

Keywords: ADHD; behavior problems; behavior therapy; parent training.

MeSH terms

Adult
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity* / therapy
Behavior Therapy* / methods
Child
Child, Preschool
Feasibility Studies
Female
Humans
Male
Parenting* / psychology
Parents* / education
Pilot Projects
Problem Behavior* / psychology