Research suggests that ethnic minority youth utilize mental health services at a substantially lower rate than Caucasian children, despite similar rates of symptomatology. Although structural factors such as health insurance status, language barriers, and ethnic match between therapist and client appear to contribute to differential utilization patterns, they do not fully account for these differences. The proposed study will examine the role of cultural factors in conjunction with ethnicity, socioeconomic status, child gender, and maternal trait anxiety in predicting parental judgments about child anxiety symptomatology and help seeking. Participants will be 114 mothers of Asian-Indian, Puerto Rican, or European-American descent (38 from each group). Participants will provide demographic information, and will complete measures of acculturation, independent and interdependent self-construal, strength of religious faith and trait anxiety. Participants will also read two vignettes, one describing an 8-year-old child exhibiting DSM-IV symptoms of separation anxiety disorder (SAD) with somatic symptoms, and one describing an 8-year-old child exhibiting DSM-IV symptoms of SAD without somatic symptoms. The gender of the child described in the vignettes will match the gender of the participant's child. After each vignette, mothers will answer several questions regarding the likely level of concern and impairment associated with the child's behavior, the likelihood of improvement without intervention, the likely cause of the child's behavior, and preferred modes of help seeking assuming they were this child's parent. Multiple regression analyses will examine the relative contributions of each variable in predicting parental judgments of SAD symptomatology (with and without somatic symptoms) and help-seeking. Parental judgments will be compared between the two conditions (somatic versus non-somatic), and predictors of observed differences between the conditions will be explored. This study will contribute to our knowledge regarding the role of cultural factors in differential mental health service utilization patterns across youth in the United States. With an in-depth understanding of cultural factors that contribute to differential utilization patterns, steps can be made to provide effective, culturally-compatible services to children in need. ? ? ? ?
