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Preliminary Validation of the Parental Help-Seeking Stage of Change Measure for Child Behavior Problems

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Abstract

Background

Most families of children with behavior problems do access treatment.

Objective

The purpose of this study was to test a parental measure of readiness to seek help for their child’s behavior problems.

Method

Data was collected annually from 148 parents at their child’s first contact with either mental health services or juvenile justice court or services. Psychopathology, service use, and factors related to service use were assessed. The majority of the sample was male (64%) and Black/African American (63%) with a mean age of 11.93 years (SD = 2.75). We administered a measure specifically developed for this study to assess stages of change in parents’ readiness to seek help for their child’s behavior problems. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to evaluate the stages of change and regression modeling to assess construct and criterion validity of the resulting readiness score.

Results

CFA of the revised subscales showed acceptable fit. Readiness scores were associated with current and future use of specialty mental health services. Higher readiness scores were associated with parents perceiving their child’s behavior as worse compared to peers, more child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms, and greater parental burden. Higher readiness scores were not associated with total family resources, symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder.

Conclusion

Scores from this measure were associated with factors that predict service engagement, and predict current and future mental health service utilization. These results indicate construct and criterion validity of measuring parental help-seeking for child behavior problems within a stages of change framework.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all of the families who participated in the study, the research staff who worked on the project, and Stephanie Milan, Ph.D. for her review and comments of an earlier draft of this manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by a grant to Dr. Burke (MH 074148) from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road U-1020, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Oliver G. Johnston, Olivia J. Derella & Jeffrey D. Burke

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Melanie A. Gold

  3. Department of Population and Family Health, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Melanie A. Gold

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  1. Oliver G. Johnston
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Correspondence to Oliver G. Johnston.

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Mr. Johnston, Ms. Derella, and Drs. Gold and Burke have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional review board of the University of Pittsburgh and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Help-Seeking Stage of Change (HSSOC) Measure

figure a
figure b

Appendix 2: HSSOC Scoring

To Calculate Subscale Scores

Write the numeric response endorsed by the parent for each of the items listed below. Take the sum of the scores for the items in that subscale and divide that by 4 to generate the subscale score.

To Calculate Total Readiness Score

Take the sum of the subscale scores for Action/Maintenance, Preparation, and Contemplation and subtract the score from Pre-Contemplation (AM + P + C − PC).

figure c

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Johnston, O.G., Derella, O.J., Gold, M.A. et al. Preliminary Validation of the Parental Help-Seeking Stage of Change Measure for Child Behavior Problems. Child Youth Care Forum 49, 223–246 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-019-09525-5

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