Moms Encounter Barriers, Discrimination to Accessing MH Care for Traumatized Youth

Callers posing as mothers of adolescents with trauma symptoms who tried scheduling outpatient appointments at safety-net mental health centers were successful during only 17% of calls, astudy published yesterday inPsychiatric Services found. Further, the authors identified a bias against non-White callers.“Despite the benefits of early intervention, fewer than half of youths with a psychiatric disorder receive such intervention,” wrote Danielle Adams, Ph.D., M.S.W., of Washington University in St. Louis and colleagues. “Furthermore, research indicates that discrimination may occur during schedu ling, creating additional barriers for families of color. Given the United States’ youth mental health crisis, which has worsened during the pandemic, substantial work is needed to identify and reduce the treatment barriers families face when seeking care.”Adams and colleagues used a “mystery shopper” method to call publicly listed community mental health centers and federally qualified health centers in Cook County, Ill. The centers were called in two waves during the COVID-19 pandemic, once in the spring (from mid-May to mid-June 2021) and again in the summer (from mid-Jun e to mid-July 2021). Voice actresses who self-identified as White, Latina, or Black posed as mothers seeking therapy for their adolescent children (14 to 18 years old) who had recently witnessed a traumatic event and were experiencing symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. Each center was called t...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: bias Medicaid mental health care mothers mystery shopper posttraumatic stress disorder private health insurance Psychiatric Services teens treatment barriers Source Type: research