HELP-SEEKING PRECEDING MENTAL-HEALTH CLINIC INTAKE AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICAN, LATINO, AND CAUCASIAN YOUTHS

Objective: Pathways into child menial health clinics were studied to t est this hypothesis: Prior to contacting clinics for their child's pro blems, African-American and Latino families are less likely than Cauca sian families to seek help from agencies and professionals (and more l ikely to contact family and community sources). Method: Regression ana lyses, applied to a sample of 192 clinic-admitted families, assessed t he impact of ethnicity and income, child gender and age, and parent pe rceptions of child problem severity and likely treatment benefit, on p reclinic help-seeking. Results: As predicted, African-American and Lat ino families, compared with Caucasian families, sought help from profe ssionals and agencies much less often, as a first step and as a percen tage of all their preclinic help-seeking. With income, age, gender, an d parent perceptions in the model, both African-American and Latino fa milies were 0.37 as likely as Caucasian families to seek initial help from a professional or agency. Conclusion: Although many minority yout hs are admitted to mental health clinics, seeking help from profession als may not have been their parents' preference. The apparent reluctan ce of minority parents carries implications for clinical intervention and alliance formation with minority group families and for the design and evaluation of ethnic community outreach programs.