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Significant numbers of children have diagnosable mental health problems, but only a small proportion of them receive appropriate services. Stigma has been associated with help-seeking for adult mental health problems and for Caucasian parents. The current study aims to understand factors, including stigma, associated with African American parents' help-seeking behavior related to perceived child behavior problems. Participants were a community sample of African American parents and/or legal guardians of children ages 3-8 years recruited from an urban primary care setting ( N = 101). Variables included child behavior, stigma (self, friends/family, and public), object of stigma (parent or child), obstacles for engagement, intention to attend parenting classes, and demographics. Self-stigma was the strongest predictor of help-seeking among African American parents. The impact of self-stigma on parents' ratings of the likelihood of attending parenting classes increased when parents considered a situation in which their child's behavior was concerning to them. Findings support the need to consider parent stigma in the design of care models to ensure that children receive needed preventative and treatment services for behavioral/mental health problems in African American families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the relationship between stigma and parental help-seeking after controlling for demographics, child behavior, and barriers to treatment. One hundred fifteen parents of children ages 4 to 8 years were surveyed during well-child visits in a rural pediatric primary care practice. Parental perceptions of stigma toward parents and children were both assessed. Parents believe that children are more likely to be stigmatized by the public and personally impacted by stigma. In linear regression analyses, parents rated themselves as more likely to attend parenting classes with lower levels of self-stigma and greater levels of personal impact of stigma. Stigma toward the child was not associated with help-seeking. Child behavior moderated the relationship between stigma and parental help-seeking. When referring parents to treatment, providers should address potential stigma concerns. Future research should assess both the impact of the stigma of attending treatment and the stigma of having a child with behavior problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most primary care pediatricians acknowledge the importance of identifying child behavior problems, fewer than 2% of children with a diagnosable psychological disorder are referred for mental health care in any given year. The present study examined the potential role of parental characteristics (parental affect, parenting style, and parenting self-efficacy) in pediatrician identification of child behavior problems, and determined whether these relationships differed across practices. Parents of 831 children between 2 and 16 years completed questionnaires regarding demographic information, their child's behavior, their affect, their parenting style, and their parenting self-efficacy. Pediatricians completed a brief questionnaire following visits in four community-based primary care practices in the Midwest. Logistic regressions controlling for child behavior and demographic predictors of pediatrician identification found that an authoritarian parenting style, in which parents yell or strongly negatively react to problem behavior, was negatively associated with likelihood of identification in the overall sample. However, the variables that were predictive of pediatrician identification differed depending on the specific practice. Parental characteristics can aid in understanding which children are likely to be identified by their pediatrician as having behavioral problems. The finding that practices differed on which variables were associated with pediatrician identification suggests the need to potentially individualize interventions to certain physicians and practices to improve identification of child behavior problems in primary care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]