The effect of manualized behavior therapy with disruptive behavior disordered children in everyday clinical practice

Abstract

This thesis starts with a review of effective psychotherapeutic treatments of school-aged children with Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD) in chapter 1. On the basis of this clinical review the author formulated the aim of her effect study, i.e. to conduct a randomized clinical trial with referred DBD children in everyday clinical practice. For this, the author used two methods that have been proven to be efficacious in the treatment of DBD children in research conditions: parent management training and social problem-solving skills training. The research questions, the design and the methods used are described in chapter 2 and 3. In chapter 4 the author describes the sychotherapeutic program which she used: the Utrecht Coping Power Program, which is an adaption of the Coping Power Program of Lochman and Wells (1996). In the following chapters the results of the study are presented. In chapter 5 the author reports om pretreatment to posttreatment effects. Chapter 6 reports on the mediating factors through which the treatment works, and moderating factors influencing the treatment effect. In addition, in chapter 7, the potentially relevant moderating role of the biological factor cortisol is adressed. In chapter 8 pretreatment to 6-months follow-up results are adressed. In chapter 9 the author gives a comparison of the costs of the treatments that have been investigated. The summary of the results and the general discussion are presented in chapter 10.