Abstract:
Objective: Examine the relationship between age, trauma history, gender, previous placement history, and presence of internalizing symptoms/diagnoses, and response to treatment in a residential treatment facility (RTF) and (2) whether pre-treatment risk factors predict post- treatment placement and length of treatment. Method: Pre-treatment data were collected from the medical charts of 209 clients (ages 6 to 15, mean age 9.62) admitted to the Short Term Treatment and Evaluation Program (STTEP) and the Intensive Residential Treatment (IRT) Program at Brewer-Porch Children’s Center (BPCC). Participants’ weekly point earnings and restraints/seclusions from the first 10 weeks of treatment, length of treatment, and discharge placement were examined. Results: Latent growth mixture modeling (LGMM) was utilized to examine trajectories for the data. Based on unconditional models, a two-trajectory solution was deemed the best solution for point-earning data and restraint/seclusion data. Results indicated that older age, being female, and presence of internalizing symptoms/diagnoses predicted higher weekly point earning. More previous hospitalizations, being a younger client, and greater trauma history predicted higher weekly restraints/seclusions. Additionally, being female and have an internalizing disorder diagnoses predicted less restrictive post-treatment placement. Discussion: Results suggest that older clients respond better to treatment, as do those with fewer hospitalizations and less trauma history. Interestingly, being female and the presence of internalizing symptoms predicted greater point earning and discharge to a less restrictive setting. Future studies should continue to examine predictors of response to treatment in RTF settings.
