Facilitators and Barriers to Psychiatric Treatment for Children:The Influence of Parental Factors

Abstract

Children may have difficulty recognizing their own mental health problems, and may be reluctant to seek help even if they recognize the problems. Parents may need to recognize their children’s problems and help them access to mental health services. The aim of this study is to identify parental factors that may facilitate or limit the access to the services for parents who have children with mental health problems. The present study reviewed studies which investigated facilitators and/or barriers for the parents to access to the services. The database including PubMed, Web of Science, CiNii, and ICHUSHI were searched, with search terms including “parent”, “child (or words including “child”)”, “service use”, “mental health”, and “factor OR barrier”. As a result, following parental factors were identified as possible facilitators and/or barriers: (1) parental recognition of children’s mental health problems, (2) parental perception of children’ functional impairments and parental perception of their children’s problems being a burden on family, (3) parent-child relationship and characteristics of parents. The results also indicated that in parents’ perspective, parental knowledge and recognition about professional help and service systems, and financial and time burdens for the service use may be the factors related to service use for their children.