4 - (SYM 5) Assessing Clinicians' Perspectives of the Cultural Sensitivity of PCIT with Black Families

Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an efficacious, strengths-based parenting program (Eyberg et al., 1995) that is typically espoused as the gold standard for treating disruptive behavior disorders in young children. Given the well-established efficacy of PCIT for primarily White families, and evidence of enhanced treatment outcomes for culturally tailored treatments, cultural adaptations of PCIT have been created to establish efficacy with Native American and Latinx populations (Bigfoot & Funderbunk, 2011; McCabe & Yeh, 2009). However, scant research has focused on cultural adaptations for Black families (Stevens, Monica & N’zi, 2018) despite evidence of Black families demonstrating disproportionately higher attrition from PCIT with a treatment drop-out rate of 56% (Fernandez et al., 2011) compared to 36% of predominantly White families (Fernandez & Eyberg, 2008). Given the disparity in attrition rates, we sought to assess the perceived cultural relevance of PCIT, reasons for attrition, and recommendations for improving the acceptability of PCIT for Black families from PCIT clinicians with experience treating Black families. Twenty clinicians certified in PCIT (45% Black, 40% White, 15% Asian; 90% female; 5% male; 5% nonbinary) completed structured, one-hour interviews via Zoom in February 2023. Clinicians reported completing PCIT with between 2 and 30 Black families and feeling comfortable treating Black families (M = 7.9/10). Clinicians’ cultural competence (Saha et al., 2013) was compared between Black and non-Black clinicians using an independent samples t-test. Black clinicians scored significantly higher than non-Black clinicians on the cross-cultural care subscale, p = 0.04; there were no other significant differences across subscales. Preliminary themes generated from the interviews include PCIT’s cultural misalignment (time out, labeled praise, terminology), logistical barriers (time-intensity, financial constraints), and non-inclusivity of kin support (e.g., grandparents). Racial differences in themes reported by clinicians will be discussed. Implications and subsequent phases of the project, including interviewing Black families who have completed PCIT, will also be discussed.