The overarching goal of the proposed research is to work toward the development of culturally appropriate interventions to improve African American youths'access to mental health service. The first step toward this goal is to develop a better understanding of what influences African American families'intentions to seek mental health services for youth, and the ways in which past experiences with such services and expectancies about such services influence these intentions. Specifically, the proposed research will use qualitative interviews to explore the links between past experiences with services, expectancies about future services, and intentions to seek services in the future by African American youth and parents. It will seek to answer three following questions: 1) What are African American mothers'and youths'experiences with mental health services? 2) Which of these experiences are linked to positive expectancies about mental health services for youth and which are linked to negative expectancies about mental health services for youth? 3) Which of these expectancies are linked to intention to use mental health services for youth and which are linked to intention to not use mental health services for youth? Moderately structured open-ended interviews will be conducted with 60 African American mother-youth dyads, each including a youth between 14 and 17 years old and a mother or mother figure. These interviews will elicit responses to the questions above. Responses will be analyzed from a qualitative descriptive framework.
| Thompson, Richard; Dancy, Barbara L; Wiley, Tisha R A et al. (2013) African American families' expectations and intentions for mental health services. Adm Policy Ment Health 40:371-83 |
| Thompson, Richard; Dancy, Barbara L; Wiley, Tisha R A et al. (2011) The experience of mental health service use for African American mothers and youth. Issues Ment Health Nurs 32:678-86 |
