Abstract
Pregnancy is a developmental period with distinct practical and attitudinal factors that affect mental health help-seeking. Within the Latine community, the inclusion of family values in therapy is associated with positive outcomes, suggesting that social relationships may contribute to help-seeking behavior for this population. This study aimed to describe the roles that social relationships play in pregnant Latines’ consideration of psychotherapy. We conducted an inductive qualitative content analysis of 25 interview transcripts assessing the acceptability of an evidence-based psychological intervention, exposure therapy, among English-speaking pregnant Latines with elevated anxiety. Emergent themes revealed that participants were motivated to seek anxiety treatment to improve family well-being, experienced internal conflict between prioritizing care for self and fulfilling their familial role, and were impacted by their close others’ attitudes toward and experiences with therapy. Findings suggest a need to address both positive and negative influences of social relationships when engaging pregnant Latines in prospective psychotherapeutic care to improve motivation, engagement, and potential outcomes, which may reduce care disparities during pregnancy.
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Data Availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Notes
This study did not explicitly inquire about participants’ gender identity, and thus uses Latine as a gender-inclusive term to refer to people with a Latin American cultural background regardless of race. The authors acknowledge that individuals in this group may also identify with alternative terms such as Hispanic, Latino/a, or Latinx.
Hispanic/Latina was used over Latine in participant-facing documents to promote increased recognition within the recruitment population. While gender-neutral terminology such as Latine and Latinx have risen in populatirty in recent years, particularly among academics, their use in the general U.S. population is not common practice and varies across demographic subgroups including age, gender, nativity, and level of education (Noe-Bustamante et al., 2020).
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This work was supported by the NIMH under Grant NIH 5T32MH015750-38, The American Psychological Association’s Dissertation Research Award and an Academic Senate Grant from UCLA.
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Ong, E., Ponting, C. & Chavira, D.A. A Qualitative Content Analysis of Social Influences on Mental Health Care Seeking Considerations Among Pregnant Latines. Int J Adv Counselling (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-024-09556-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-024-09556-1