Understanding Latino Parents’ Child Mental Health Literacy

Abstract

Objective This article describes Phase 1 of a pilot that aims to develop, implement, and test an intervention to educate and simultaneously engage highly stressed Latino parents in child mental health services. A team of Spanish-speaking academic and community co-investigators developed the intervention using a community-based participatory research approach and qualitative methods. Method Through focus groups, the team identified parents' knowledge gaps and their health communication preferences. Results Latino parents from urban communities need and welcome child mental health literacy interventions that integrate printed materials with videos, preferably in their native language, combined with guidance from professionals. Conclusion A 3-minute video in Spanish that integrates education entertainment strategies and a culturally relevant format was produced as part of the intervention to educate and simultaneously engage highly stressed Latino parents in child mental health care. It is anticipated that the intervention will positively impact service use among this group.

School-based mental health for Asian American immigrant youth: Perceptions and recommendations.

“…Considering the potential role of teachers as sources of support to parents (Jorm & Wright, 2007), discussing mental health concerns and SBMH services at parent–teacher conferences (Ouellette, Briscoe, & Tyson, 2004), as suggested by the students in this study, may prove beneficial. Although some interventions exist (Umpierre et al, 2015), research examining their impact with Asian immigrant parents is limited. Findings from this study, however, provide useful information on how best to tailor such programs with the goal of reducing barriers to AA immigrant engagement in SBMH services.…”

The Malay Literacy of Suicide Scale: A Rasch Model Validation and Its Correlation with Mental Health Literacy among Malaysian Parents, Caregivers and Teachers

“…For improvement, more difficult items can be included to better assess and differentiate respondents with high abilities [28]. On the other hand, the cluster of items between the +1 to +2 logits is deemed psychometrically redundant (e.g., Items 17,25,7,and 8), as these items measure a similar ability level. Although these items can be dropped, we argue their importance, as they measure different categories of suicide knowledge.…”

“…Although teachers were not the preferred source of help, teachers were more likely to encounter teens suffering from mental illnesses, since they were required to meet and communicate with children and adolescents for most of their working hours. A qualitative study among parents and caregivers of adolescents suffering from mental illnesses stated that most of their children’s mental health problems were initially detected by school personnel [ 8 ].…”

Strategies for Disseminating Information on Biomedical Research on Autism to Hispanic Parents

“…The intervention was geared towards the Hispanic population because they experience barriers to accessing healthcare information due to limited English proficiency, living in linguistically isolated households (Umpierre et al, 2014), and having a significantly increased likelihood of having basic and below basic levels of literacy (Yin et al, 2009; Kutner, Greenberg, Jin, & Paulsen, 2006; McKee and Paasche-Orlow, 2012; Sudore et al, 2009). In addition to being among the fastest growing ethnic groups in the nation, a disproportionately high number of Hispanic families live below the poverty level (26%), are less likely to have insurance and are more likely to be unemployed than other ethnic or racial groups (Yin et al, 2009).…”