Outcomes of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) for Korean Families: A Systematic Review

Background and Purpose

In 2025, South Korea’s academic race pushed that 47.6% of children under six were enrolled in private tutoring institutions (Cho, 2025). Korean parents’ intense focus on educational attainments led to inadvertently taking away social and emotional growth, causing rising mental health issues among young children (Jarvis et al., 2020; Kim & Holloway, 2018). In response to reducing mental health issues among young children, this study aims to find the efficacy of PCIT by conducting a systematic review. Although the effectiveness of PCIT is well established in several systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the US and other countries (Thomas et al., 2017; Valero-Aguayo et al., 2021; van der Put et al., 2018), its efficacy for Korean families is understudied.

Methods

Research Design

This study followed the protocol of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews (Higgins et al., 2019). The study employed the PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) framework to plan the review, identify evidence, select studies, assess the risk of bias, and synthesize the narratives.

Search Strategy

The systematic review was conducted using the PsychINFO, Medline, Embase, and Scopus databases in the US, and the Research Information Sharing Service (RISS), the Korean Studies Information Service System (KISS), and the National Assembly Library (NANET) in South Korea published 1991 to February 2022.

Data Extraction

The review targeted PCIT interventions with children aged 18 months to 10 years. The search strategy used terms such as “Parent-Child Interaction Therapy,” “PCIT,” and Koreans. No PCIT studies with Korean families were found in the US databases. From the Korean database, initial searches yielded 1,157 articles from RISS, 29 from KISS, and 33 from NANET. 781 studies unrelated to PCIT were excluded using Endnote 20. In the next stage, 419 additional studies were excluded, resulting in a total of 17 studies. Quality assessment was performed using the ROBINS-I tool developed by the Cochrane Collaboration.

Results

The 17 selected studies (436 participants) included 8 randomized control studies, 7 pre-post testing, and 2 experimental group pre-post only. 73.7% (14 studies) targeted children with behavioral issues; 2 focused on typically developing children with emotional problems; and 1 involved children with developmental delays. The overall effect size of PCIT: ES = 1.09, indicating a significant effect. This suggests that PCIT is highly effective, particularly for children aged 2 to 7 (ES=1.18), revealing significant improvements in reducing behavioral problems, the volume of speech in children with developmental delays, and increasing parental efficacy.

Conclusion and Implications

The findings highlighted the effectiveness of PCIT for Korean children, showing promise in tailoring PCIT to support Korean parents. While Korean society continues to explore ways of reducing negative impacts of academic pressure for children (Choi et al., 2019; Hong, 2023), implementing PCIT as consistent and effective parenting coaching model contributed to help Korean children gain social and emotional growth. Future research on mediating the effects of PCIT in academic demands will further guide additional adaptations to support Korean children who undergo ongoing academic stress in society.