Parental perspective on children’s mental health : an Investigation into Aotearoa New Zealand parental figures mental health literacy : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
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Date
2023
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Massey University
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Abstract
Prevalence of child mental distress is continuing to rise in Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite this, there appears to be a significant gap between child mental distress prevalence and service use in Aotearoa New Zealand, with research indicating mental distress in a large number of children remains unrecognised and untreated. Parental figures play a crucial role in children accessing services for mental distress, due to parental figures being a main identifier for their child’s mental distress, and also because accessing services is difficult for a minor to achieve on their own. Overseas research has highlighted the concerning inability of parental figures to firstly, recognise child mental distress, and secondly, how to appropriately access
help for their children, highlighting the urgent need for improved parental figure mental health literacy. However, very limited research is available on Aotearoa New Zealand data regarding this issue. Given this, this study aims to addresses the current gap in research, thus investigating Aotearoa New Zealand parental figure’s knowledge of mental health literacy through gaining an understanding on their ability to recognise and seek help for mental distress in children and adolescents, while also exploring factors which influence distress recognition and help-seeking intentions. To investigate parental figure’s mental health literacy, an online survey was developed based on six vignettes describing 8-year-old and 14-year-old ADHD, depression with comorbid anxiety, and a control case without clinically significant distress. In total, 243 parental figure responses were analysed using SPSS software and content analysis. This study found Aotearoa New Zealand parental figures possessed excellent knowledge surrounding mental health literacy, finding an average of 93.2% of parental figures accurately recognised distress within the four vignettes presenting with distress, and an average of 91.6% of parental figures indicated positive help-seeking intentions for the four vignettes presenting with distress. Additionally, content analysis identified waitlist delays, stigma, and cost were predominant barriers hindering parental figure help-seeking for child and adolescent
mental distress. These findings suggest the gap between child mental distress prevalence and service use in Aotearoa New Zealand may be a consequence of parental figure perceived barriers, as opposed to low mental health literacy knowledge.