Collaborative Problem Solving reduces children's emotional and behavioral difficulties and parenting stress: Two key mechanisms.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) approach in home-based family therapy and to explore two hypothesized mechanisms of change.

Method: Sixty-seven families with children aged 3-12 years old completed a 12-week home-based CPS treatment program. Parent-report measures were completed pre- and post-intervention, including measures on parents' fidelity of using CPS, parents' empathy, children's executive functioning, children's behavioral difficulties, and parenting stress.

The Collaborative Problem Solving approach: outcomes across settings.

In the last decade, Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) has become a popular approach to managing the challenging behaviors of children and adolescents, and has established a growing evidence base for reducing oppositional behavior and related outcomes. In contrast with standard behavioral methods that provide incentives for meeting adult expectations, CPS focuses on identifying and treating lagging cognitive skills that interfere with children's ability to meet these expectations. Since the majority of CPS outcomes have been evaluated in clinical and educational settings as part of internal quality-improvement efforts, only a small proportion of these findings has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals.