Practitioner review: Psychosocial treatments for conduct disorder in children

The present paper reviews promising treatments for conduct disorder among children and adolescents. The treatments include problem-solving skills training, parent management training, functional family therapy and multisystemic therapy. For each treatment, conceptual underpinnings, characteristics and outcome evidence are highlighted. Limitations associated with these treatments (e.g. paucity of long-term follow-up evidence and of evidence for the clinical significance of the change) are also presented. Broader issues that affect treatment and clinical work with conduct-disordered youths are also addressed, including retaining cases in treatment, what treatments do not work, who responds well to treatment, comorbidity, the use of combined treatments and the need for new models of treatment delivery.