The bidirectional associations between caregiver and child symptoms in the parent-led treatment stepping together for children after trauma.

Background: An innovative approach to child trauma treatment in which caregivers are allocated treatment tasks has shown promising results, but less is known about the bidirectional associations between caregiver and child symptoms during treatment.

Methods: Eighty-two child-caregiver dyads who participated in the parent-led therapist-assisted Stepping Together for Children after Trauma (ST-CT) were included (child age: 7-12 years, mean = 9.9 years). Caregivers' emotional reactions and anxiety/depression and children's posttraumatic stress (PTS) and depression were assessed pretreatment, mid-treatment, and posttreatment. We investigated the possible directional associations between caregivers' emotional reactions and anxiety/depression and children's PTS and depression using random intercept cross-lagged panel models.

Results: Symptoms improved in both caregivers and children. Lower levels of caregiver emotional reactions at pretreatment predicted improved child PTS at mid-treatment; lower levels of caregiver emotional reactions at mid-treatment predicted improved child depression at posttreatment; and lower levels of child PTS at mid-treatment predicted improved caregiver emotional reactions at posttreatment.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that caregivers and children can impact each other's responses to a parent-led child trauma-focused treatment. Notably, children with caregivers who were less affected by their own emotional reactions exhibited greater improvement in both PTS and depression. Supporting the caregivers may benefit both children and caregivers.

Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04073862; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04073862.