Caregivers as gatekeepers: Professional mental health service use among urban minority adolescents
| Autor: | Yi Tak Tsang, Brittany Kohlberger, Ty Partridge, Marilyn Franklin, Douglas Barnett, Valerie A. Simon, Kelsey Sala-Hamrick |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Mental Health Services Parents Adolescent media_common.quotation_subject Ethnic group PsycINFO Primary care Structural equation modeling Mental health service Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) Perception Developmental and Educational Psychology medicine Ethnicity Humans 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Poverty Minority Groups media_common Primary Health Care Mental Disorders 05 social sciences Social Support Mental illness medicine.disease Mental health Black or African American Psychiatry and Mental health Caregivers Female Psychology (miscellaneous) Psychology 050104 developmental & child psychology Clinical psychology |
| Zdroj: | The American journal of orthopsychiatry. 90(3) |
| ISSN: | 1939-0025 |
| Popis: | Mental illness among adolescents frequently goes untreated, especially among low income and ethnic minority families. We sought to examine parent and adolescent psychological factors influencing mental health service use among 120 urban adolescents (82% African American, Age 13-18 years, M = 14.29, SD = 1.52) who had access to mental health treatment through their community primary care setting. We utilized structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the independent and combined associations among parent and adolescent variables hypothesized to be associated with the youth's engagement in mental health treatment. Results showed that more than half (63.6%) of youth with clinically significant levels of symptoms were not currently engaged in treatment or seeking mental health services. One latent variable emerged: caregivers' perceptions of adolescent mental health problems (consisted of youth psychological symptoms, youth functional impairment, and strain on caregiver). Together with caregivers' attitude toward professional help, these two caregiver-reported variables, but not adolescents' attitude, were associated with higher likelihood of service utilization among adolescents. Findings suggest caregivers functioned as the "gatekeepers" to mental health services. We discuss findings' implications for engaging youth in mental health services as well as study limitations and future directions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved). |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|