Keeping children and youth in trauma treatment: Examination of an alliance building dropout management program

Abstract

Evidence-based treatments exist to address traumatic stress related symptoms for children, however dropout from trauma-focused treatment remains a concern. This study examined use of an alliance building dropout management program for a group of children ages 3–17 who received an evidence-based trauma-focused treatment. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between child gender, race, ethnicity, age, guardianship, externalizing behaviors, participation in a dropout management program and the dose of treatment received. The final model was significant and participation in the dropout management program as well as a child’s placement in foster care were significant individual correlates with full completion of treatment. Use of an Alliance Building Dropout Management program may help decrease overall dropout over and above the contribution of other variables known to impact treatment completion.