Functional outcomes of maltreated children and adolescents in a community-based rehabilitation program in Brazil: Six-month improvement and baseline predictors

This study sought to implement outcomes monitoring and to review outcome data from a community-based rehabilitation program for maltreated children and adolescents in São Paulo, Brazil. Maltreated children and adolescents (N = 452) were enrolled in The Equilibrium Program (TEP), a multidisciplinary community-based rehabilitation program. About half (n = 230) of the participants were successfully evaluated using the Children's Global Assessment Scale (C-GAS) at entry, 3, and/or 6 months later. Analysis of outcomes used hierarchical linear modeling of functional change from baseline. With a baseline C-GAS score of 51.7 (SD = 14.22), average improvement was 2.8 and 5.5 points at 3 and 6 months, respectively (reflecting small to moderate effect sizes = 0.20 and 0.39). Improvement was associated with Problems related to upbringing (p < .02) at entry and absence of Physical abuse (p < .05) and Negative life events in childhood (p < .05) but was not associated with sociodemographics or any specific psychiatric diagnosis. This study showed that outcomes monitoring is feasible in a community-based program in a developing country. Although there was no untreated control group for comparison and specific evidence-based treatments were not used, it is notable that significant improvement, with small to moderate effect size, was observed.