Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Harvard Medical School, 25 Shattuck St, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Florida A&M University, 1601 S. Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Tallahassee, FL 32307, USA.
Asian J Psychiatr. 2020 Jan;47:101857. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2019.101857. Epub 2019 Oct 24.
Although parents are often the first to facilitate help-seeking in their children, parental perceptions regarding mental health serve as a significant barrier to the access of mental health services. This study examined mental health perceptions held by Chinese immigrant parents of youth.
Eighteen parents (13 female, 5 male), who identified as having children between the ages of 13 and 21 years, participated in audio-recorded interviews using five vignettes depicting depression with and without a somatic emphasis, schizophrenia with paranoid features, attenuated psychosis syndrome, and social anxiety in youth. Questions about potential causes, likely diagnosis, and health-seeking behaviors in relation to these vignettes were asked. Interviews were analyzed for themes using a deductive-inductive hybrid approach, informed by the explanatory models that have shed light on Asian perceptions of mental illness and approaches to help-seeking.
While Asian groups are often considered as lacking in mental health knowledge, we found that Chinese immigrant parents were comfortable with psychological terminology as it pertained to identifying causes and describing supportive strategies and the seeking of Western-based providers. However, the majority of Chinese immigrant parent respondents did not easily note suicidality. Furthermore, respondents did not consider social anxiety as a major mental health issue among Chinese immigrant parents and attributed social anxiety to personality or cultural differences.
These findings provide an understanding of how Chinese immigrant parents conceptualize mental illness and help-seeking, which may be helpful for providers when working with Chinese immigrant parents of children that have a mental health concern.
尽管父母通常是第一个帮助孩子寻求帮助的人，但他们对心理健康的看法是获得心理健康服务的一个重大障碍。本研究考察了华裔移民父母对青少年心理健康的看法。
18 名父母（13 名女性，5 名男性）参加了录音访谈，使用了五个描绘青少年抑郁症（有和没有躯体化）、偏执型精神分裂症、精神病前综合征、社交焦虑的情景片段。针对这些情景片段询问了有关潜在原因、可能诊断和与健康相关的寻求行为的问题。使用演绎-归纳混合方法分析访谈主题，这种方法受到了解释模型的启发，这些模型揭示了亚洲人对精神疾病的看法和寻求帮助的方式。
虽然亚洲群体通常被认为缺乏心理健康知识，但我们发现，华裔移民父母对与识别原因和描述支持性策略以及寻求西方提供者相关的心理学术语感到舒适。然而，大多数华裔移民父母受访者并没有轻易注意到自杀倾向。此外，受访者并不认为社交焦虑是华裔移民父母的一个主要心理健康问题，而是将社交焦虑归因于个性或文化差异。
这些发现提供了对华裔移民父母如何概念化精神疾病和寻求帮助的理解，这可能对与有心理健康问题的儿童的华裔移民父母合作的提供者有所帮助。
