Current use of treatment groups for parents and their preschool children

Abstract

Despite the apparent advantages of group treatment for parents and their preschool children, this technique is not widely used in child psychiatry departments. Those units that have groups find them useful resources for the assessment and treatment of families with a wide variety of presenting problems. Experience is leading clinicians to run groups that are (a) time limited and closed; and (b) structured and focused in their work. Audit projects are being conducted in some centres to evaluate their usefulness, but no studies have been undertaken of groups using random allocation of patients. This should be done before their efficacy can be assured compared with other treatment models.