Correlates of mental health service utilization and unmet need among a sample of male adolescents

The authors sought to identify the correlates of mental health services uti lization and unmet need for these services among a sample of adolescent mal es. We hypothesized that our findings would replicate and extend those of t he recent Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disor ders (MECA) study, which found that parental factors play a major role in t heir children's unmet mental health care needs. Our study involved an evalu ation of mental health service utilization and unmet need during the prior 2 years, as reported by the subjects at a follow-up assessment at age 16. F our factors were found to predict increased mental health services utilizat ion, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositi onal defiant disorder (ODD) among the adolescent males, the father's alcoho l use disorder, and the mother's amphetamine use disorder. One factor was f ound to predict decreased utilization, the father's cannabis use disorder. Four factors significantly predicted unmet treatment need, including conduc t disorder, the mother's amphetamine use disorder, a higher number of sibli ngs, and a parental history of having had a childhood anxiety disorder. The results of this study suggest that parental psychopathology, parental subs tance abuse, the presence of conduct disorder, and an increased number of s iblings act as barriers to adequate mental health treatment among adolescen ts. These findings confirm the crucial role that parental factors play in t he treatment utilization and the unmet treatment need of their children, an d also suggest that an increased number of siblings can also be associated with unmet treatment need. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.