Ethnic populations: Community mental health services ten years later

Abstract

In a replication of a series of studies conducted by Sue and colleagues in the mid-1970s, demographic and service data were retrieved for the Seattle-King County area from the Washington Mental Health Information System. Caucasian clients were compared against Asian, black, Hispanic, and Native American client groups, and, where possible, against the findings reported earlier by Sue. These clients were compared in terms of basic demographic characteristics, characteristics of staff providing the services, dropout rates, and average number of services received. The most notable findings are (a) that failure-to-return rates are dramatically lower for the current sample than for Sue's and not greatly different for minorities than for Caucasians, (b) that variability in failure-to-return rates is most strongly related to level of functioning and not related to minority status, and (c) that although Asian Americans still average fewer services than Caucasians (other minorities do not differ significantly), the mean number of services had increased substantially for all groups but more for minorities than for Caucasians.

Barriers to treatment for eating disorders among ethnically diverse women

“…This rate is consistent with rates reported by other investigators for treatment seeking for psychological problems in minority groups (O'Sullivan, Peterson, Cox, & Kirkeby, 1989;Ying & Miller, 1992). There has been growing recognition in the mental health care field that minority populations do suffer from mental health problems and that their underuse of the mental health care system is not a function of less need for such care (Bernal & Enchautegui-de-Jesus, 1994;O'Sullivan & Lasso, 1992).…”

“…These proposed barriers can be viewed from an "individual" or from a "system" perspective (Escovar & Kurtines, 1983). Individual or person variables include feelings of shame and fear of stigma (Kline, 1996); cultural perceptions of psychiatric disturbance (O'Sullivan et al, 1989), specifically, minimizing or interpreting differently problems that others would consider to be serious psychological problems or not identifying psychological problems as such (Acosta, 1979;Kline, 1996); the belief that seeing a therapist is a sign of character weakness and that one should be able to help oneself (Keefe, 1979;Poma, 1983); turning to family or other informal support systems in times of need (Escovar & Kurtines, 1983;Keefe, 1979;Poma, 1983); turning to alternative forms of therapy such as folk healers (Acosta, 1979;Poma, 1983); discomfort about being separated from one's family (Kline, 1996); not viewing counselors as credible sources of help (Buhrke & Jorge, 1992); expectation that counselors will be hostile or cold (Keefe, 1979); and unfamiliarity with mental health services (see review by Keefe & Casas, 1980). Examples of system barriers are language barriers (Acosta, 1979;Marin, Marin, Padilla, & de la Rocha, 1983); financial difficulties and lack of health insurance (Marin et al, 1983;Wells, Golding, Hough, Burnam, & Karno, 1988); inaccessible health care facilities, time conflicts and long waits (Marin et al, 1983); lack of transportation and lack of child care (Marin et al, 1983); and lack of ethnically representative professional staff (Acosta & Cristo, 1982).…”

National utilization of mental health services by Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders

“…In terms of previous research, most, but not all, recent large scale studies indicate that Asian Americans utilize mental health services at a rate proportionately lower than Euro Americans (Bui & Takeuchi, 1992;Hu, Snowden, Jerrel, & Nguyen, 1991;Leong, 1994;O'Sullivan, Peterson, Cox, & Kirkeby, 1989;Sue, Fujino, Hu, Takeuchi, & Zane, 1991). However, these studies primarily focus on a specific locale, providing little information about overall national trends.…”

“…However, these studies primarily focus on a specific locale, providing little information about overall national trends. For example, Bui and Takeuchi (1992) examined utilization rates in Los Angeles County, California, O'Sullivan et al (1989) focused on Seattle, Washington, and Leong (1994) examined utilization rates in Hawaii. The lone exception to these more geographically specific studies, Cheung and Snowden (1990) of 1.29, presents national data provided by NIMH for 1983.…”

Latino Adults’ Access to Mental Health Care: A Review of Epidemiological Studies

“…Since our focus was only on epidemiological studies examining how Latino adults residing in the community accessed mental health services, we excluded studies that used client data and/or clinical samples from particular mental health service agencies or systems of care (e.g., Barrio, Yamada, Hough, Hawthorne, Garcia, & Jeste, 2003;O'Sullivan, Peterson, Cox, & Kirkeby, 1989;Snowden, Hu, & Jerrel, 1995;Takeuchi, Sue, & Yeh, 1995).…”