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

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.