Bridging the gap between child mental health need and professional service utilisation: Examining the influence of mothe
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ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION
Bridging the gap between child mental health need and professional service utilisation: Examining the influence of mothers’ parental attributions on professional help‑seeking intentions Vilas Sawrikar1,3 · Antonio Mendoza Diaz1,2 · Lucy Tully1 · David J. Hawes1 · Caroline Moul1 · Mark R. Dadds1 Received: 1 July 2020 / Accepted: 30 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract There is a significant gap between the need for child mental health services and use of these services by families. Parental attributions may play a role in this. This study examined whether mothers’ attributions about their child’s problems influence professional help-seeking intentions in a general sample of community mothers. Secondary analysis re-examined this hypothesis in a subgroup of mothers of children with clinically elevated mental health symptoms. Cross-sectional survey data were collected from mothers (N = 184) of children aged between 2 and 12 years recruited from the community. Mothers completed self-report questionnaires measuring parental attributions: child-responsible attributions and parental self-efficacy; professional help-seeking intentions; and psychosocial covariates: child mental health, mothers’ anxiety and depression, child age, gender, marital status, education, and professional help-seeking experience. Hierarchical regression modelling indicated that parental attributions explained professional help-seeking intentions after controlling for covariates in both the general sample (ΔF = 6.07; p = .003) and subgroup analysis (ΔF = 10.22, p = .000). Professional help-seeking intentions were positively associated with child-responsible attributions (β = .19, p = .002) but not parental self-efficacy (β = – .01, p = .865) in the general sample, while positively associated with child-responsible attributions (β = .20, p = .009) and negatively associated with parental self-efficacy (β = – .16, p = .034) in the subgroup analysis. Findings were independent of the presence of clinically elevated symptoms, problem type, and severity. Overall, the findings support models suggesting that parental attributions have a role in professional help-seeking for child mental health problems. Keywords Child mental health · Help-seeking · Treatment engagement · Treatment adherence · Parental attributions
Introduction
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-020-01682-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Vilas Sawrikar [email protected] 1
School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
2
School of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
3
Department of Clinical Psychology, School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Mental health problems are prevalent among children, with research indicating that approximately one in seven children will meet criteria for a mental health dis
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