Abstract
The U.S. children’s mental health system is faced with ameliorating the impacts of significant ethnic disparities in service utilization and outcomes. Furthermore, there has been little effort to assess the quality of children’s mental health care. In this study, we compare Haitian, African-American, and White caregiver perceptions of the quality of their child’s mental health care. Four overarching domains were examined: access to care, cultural and linguistic competence, engagement of caregivers, and appropriateness of services. Through the analysis, we identify ethnic differences in the experiences of caregivers in accessing and receiving services for their children, with minority caregivers reporting greater barriers and poorer quality of care. Structural and cultural factors are explored to understand the interaction of multiple processes that shape access to and quality of care. Implications for policy and practice are discussed, including the need for greater cultural competency and responsiveness in mental health care, and the need to build greater trust between providers and minority communities.
Highlights
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Study provides unique assessment of the quality of children’s mental health care.
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Compares service experiences of White, African American, and Haitian caregivers.
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White caregivers reported better quality of care compared to non-white caregivers.
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Differences between African American and Haitian caregivers were found but smaller.
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Differences were also observed in severity of symptoms and socioeconomic variables.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the caregivers who participated in this study, as well as our community data collectors who made this project possible—Theresa Parsons, Luciane Seraphin, Donya Lawson, Dan Casella, Tiffani Hinds, Angie Rodriguez, Jennifer Magruder, Tandra Jones, Kathy Plyler, and Troy Wingerter. We also wish to thank the Florida Department of Children and Families for their support of this research.
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This study was granted exemption by the University of South Florida’s Institutional Review Board due to the nature of the work being classified as program evaluation. Regardless, all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University’s Institutional Review Board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Johnson, M.H., McNeish, R. & Vargo, A.C. Exploring Ethnic Differences in Caregiver Perceptions of the Quality of Children’s Mental Health Care. J Child Fam Stud 29, 2552–2567 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01750-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01750-0