Diversity in Randomized Controlled Trials for Parent Management Training: A Systematic Review

The NIH Revitalization Act was passed by the United States Congress in 1993 and mandated that researchers include women and minorities in clinical research. However, the extent that researchers have adhered to the NIH Revitalization Act in randomized controlled studies of parent training programs for treatment of child disruptive behavior is unknown. This systematic review examined how minority inclusion was addressed in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of parent management training for child disruptive behavior. This review focused on a variety of parent training programs such as The Incredible Years, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, and Coping Power. The researchers identified 35 studies that met the inclusion criteria. When ethnic and racial minority data was analyzed, it was found that 44% of participants were White; 13.16% were African American; 18.41% were Latinx; 2.91% were Asian; and 5.85% were reported as "other." Ethnic and racial data was not reported for 15.96% of participants. Overall, racial and ethnic inclusion in RCTs for parent training programs has improved in recent years and there is proximal concordance between population make-up and representation of African Americans and (to a lesser degree) Latinxs in parenting intervention RCTs. However there remains a need for improved inclusion that more closely represents the racial and ethnic make-up of the general population for other groups (e.g., Asians and Indigenous populations).