Engagement, parenting skills, and parent-child relations as mediators of the relationship between parental self-efficacy and treatment outcomes for children with conduct problems

Increasingly, behavioral health professionals are recognizing the need to involve parents and other significant family members in the treatment of children. However, often professionals and parents themselves may not feel comfortable with a more inclusive treatment approach. Parents' own level of self-efficacy may inhibit or enhance the behavioral health care. Self-efficacy is defined by Bandura as a person's belief about his or her own abilities to produce designated levels of performance that can serve to influence events that affect their lives. This study investigated the relationship between parental self-efficacy and treatment outcomes for children with conduct problems. Using a secondary analysis of the data collected in the REACH Project, the relationship of parental self-efficacy, parenting skills, engagement, and parent-child relations with child outcomes was assessed. Also examined were the effects of changes in child's behaviors on parental self-efficacy. Findings from the path analysis of two mediational models suggest that parental self-efficacy is not a predictor of child outcomes as expected but that the parent's level of engagement in treatment is predictive of the improvements children with conduct problems will make in treatment. Additionally, parental self-efficacy does not improve as a child's behavioral problems diminish although improvements in parenting skills are predictive of improvements in parental self-efficacy. Although this study has a number of limitations, it is a first step in identifying the relationships amongst parental characteristic and the outcomes of children's behavioral health services. Discussion about how parent's self-efficacy plays a role is offered.