A Scoping Review of Barriers and Facilitators to Latinx Caregivers’ Help-Seeking for Their Children’s Mental Health Symptoms and Disorders

The current review aimed to understand Latinx caregivers’ barriers to mental health service and help-seeking behaviors for their youth and identify caregivers’ facilitators for mental health help-seeking and mental health service use for their Latinx youth. We identified 27 peer-reviewed articles (70% were quantitative, 19% were qualitative, and 11% were mixed methods) that met the inclusion criteria for the current review. Seven themes related to barriers emerged from the review: cultural factors and characteristics, logistical, systemic and societal, problem recognition and identification, fears about seeking therapy, parental and familial behaviors and thoughts, and stigma and judgment. Additionally, seven themes related to facilitators emerged from the review: family social support, positive thinking and outlook, history and familiarity with therapy, parental and child-related factors, demographic and logistical characteristics, school-related and cultural factors. Implications and future directions are discussed.