Description
Parent-youth treatment goal agreement is an important consideration in mental health services, as disagreement could disrupt treatment. Previous research indicates similar experiences between parents and their youths could lead to greater parent-youth agreement. The present study will examine the relationship between different types of caregiver strain and parent-youth agreement on treatment goals in a culturally diverse sample. The study examined a culturally diverse sample of 272 youths 12 to 18 who had used outpatient mental health services and their parents. Caregiver strain, youth symptomatology, and parent-youth agreement on treatment goals were measured. Logistic regression models examined the relationship between different types of caregiver strain (objective, subjective internalized, subjective externalized) and parent-youth agreement on treatment goals (externalizing or externalizing). Joint Significance tests were conducted to identify evidence of a mediating effect of parent reports of youth symptomatology (externalizing or internalizing) on the relationship between caregiver strain and parent-youth agreement on treatment goals. If evidence was present, this mediating effect was confirmed with bias- corrected bootstrapped confidence intervals. In the logistic regressions, only subjective externalized caregiver strain was significantly and negatively associated with parent-youth agreement on internalizing treatment goals. In the mediation analyses, parent reports of youth externalizing symptomatology appeared to mediate the association between objective caregiver strain and parent-youth agreement on externalizing treatment goals. Additionally, parent reports of youth internalizing symptomatology appeared to mediate the association between objective caregiver strain and parent-youth agreement on internalizing treatment goals, between subjective internalized caregiver strain and parent-youth agreement on internalizing treatment goals, and in an exploratory analysis, between subjective externalized caregiver strain and parent-youth agreement on internalizing treatment goals. The significant mediation models indicate parent reports of youth symptomatology could explain the associations between caregiver strain and parent-youth agreement on treatment goals. However, the analyses involve cross-sectional data, so the direction of effects could not be confirmed. Overall, findings suggest that attention to caregiver strain types and parent reports of youth symptomatology may provide insight into whether parents and youth will agree on treatment goals.
