Neurobiological stress responses predict aggression in boys with oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder: a 1-year follow-up intervention study

Jantiene Schoorl,Minet De Wied,Hanna Swaab,Stephanie H M Van Goozen,Sophie Van Rijn

doi:10.1007/s00787-017-0950-x

Jantiene Schoorl, Minet De Wied + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-017-0950-x

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Abstract

To improve outcome for children with antisocial and aggressive behavior, it is important to know which individual characteristics contribute to reductions in problem behavior. The predictive value of a parent training (Parent Management Training Oregon; PMTO), parenting practices (monitoring, discipline, and punishment), and child neurobiological function (heart rate, cortisol) on the course of aggression was investigated. 64 boys with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder (8–12 years) participated; parents of 22 boys took part in PMTO. All data were collected before the start of the PMTO, and aggression ratings were collected three times, before PMTO, and at 6 and 12 month follow-up. Parent training predicted a decline in aggression at 6 and 12 months. Child neurobiological variables, i.e., higher cortisol stress reactivity and better cortisol recovery, also predicted a decline in aggression at 6 and 12 months. Heart rate and parenting practices were not related to the course of aggression. These results indicate that child neurobiological factors can predict persistence or reduction of aggression in boys with ODD/CD, and have unique prognostic value on top of the parent training effects.

Highlights

Antisocial and aggressive behaviors emerge in childhood and often extend into adolescence and adulthood, with a high risk of co-occurring negative outcomes, such as delinquency, unemployment, and psychiatric disorders [3]
Because of the higher frequency of aggression in the clinical intervention group at Time-1 compared to the clinical control group, t = 3.16, p = 0.002, we performed another repeated measures ANOVA (rANOVA) with aggression frequency
The aim of this study was to predict the course of aggression from parental factors, i.e., parent training and parenting practices, and neurobiological factors, i.e., heart rate (HR) and cortisol, in boys with ODD/CD

Summary

Introduction

Antisocial and aggressive behaviors emerge in childhood and often extend into adolescence and adulthood, with a high risk of co-occurring negative outcomes, such as delinquency, unemployment, and psychiatric disorders [3]. Poor parenting practices have been associated with higher levels of delinquency and aggression [14, 28], especially that monitoring and discipline are important for child outcomes [26]. Interventions targeting parenting practices are found to be effective in reducing aggression in children [12, 13, 18, 21, 22, 24, 39]. Core to these parent training programs is the idea that changing the behavior of the child asks for the social environment to react differently to the child’s behavior.

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