Table 4.

Summary of Implications for practice, policy, and research.

Implications for practice, policy, and research
1. Treatment programs should be undertaken in the context of high-quality research following methodological principles that decreased bias. Despite this, we encourage reformulating CODC guidelines to include criteria for eliminating validity’ threats in studies that measure the effectiveness of intervention in the short term.
2. Researchers should focus on the non-criminogenic factors for understanding which and how they influence the process of change and whether they should be incorporated as intervention elements.
3. Researchers should use both recidivism rates and pre-post treatment changes because it helps to know if treatment reduces recidivism, promotes changes in criminological factors, and what kind of changes lead individuals to desist from offending.
4. Practitioners should focus on the risk level of the participants when creating the intervention programs since it allows to identify the appropriate dosage of treatment.
5. Practitioners should consider both the presence of traumatic events (i.e., sexual abuse) and the motivational state that is known to have an early influence on the therapeutic process when creating the psychological intervention programs.
6. Practitioners should consider intervention on a deeper level (i.e., schema-focused). It enables the individual to work toward a more functional life, gaining greater knowledge about the developmental and cognitive processes involved in sexual offending.
7. Research on the effectiveness of intervention programs should begin to approach therapists’ background and training since several studies have highlighted the central role that therapist-related variables play in the outcomes of psychotherapy.