Abstract

Barriers to mental health service utilization among Asian Americans have been studied with no well tested barrier assessment instrument. The primary aim of this study is to evaluate psychometric properties of the Mental Health Service Barrier Assessment (MHSBA) instrument developed by the researchers to assess under-utilization of mental health services in 225 Korean Americans. The reliability of the instrument was high, with Cronbach's alpha, 0.93. Five distinct factors (dissatisfaction with service, lack of resources, attitude toward health care treatment, cost, and personal belief) and 3 additional clinically relevant factors (shame, family issues, and other resources) were identified. Also, the correlation between depression score and barrier score was shown to be low (r=.11), which may imply that the barrier may be a common problem irrespective of severity of depression. Additionally, the 10 most frequently selected barrier items in the MHSBA instrument were reported, while the people's belief of "mental problems are a natural part of our lives" was reported as the most common reason (selected by 71% of the participants) for not receiving or seeking mental health services. External validation of this instrument or its utility assessment is needed in Korean and other Asian Americans in future studies.

Description

41st Biennial Convention - 29 October-2 November 2011. Theme: People and Knowledge: Connecting for Global Health. Held at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center.

Author Details

Kunsook S. Bernstein, RN, PhD, NP, CASAC

Sigma Membership

Unknown

Type

Presentation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

N/A

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

Barriers to Mental Health Services, Psychometric Properties, Asian Americans

Conference Name

41st Biennial Convention

Conference Host

Sigma Theta Tau International

Conference Location

Grapevine, Texas, USA

Conference Year

2011

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Download

Share

COinS
 

Psychometric properties of a mental health service barrier assessment tool for Asian-Americans

Grapevine, Texas, USA

Barriers to mental health service utilization among Asian Americans have been studied with no well tested barrier assessment instrument. The primary aim of this study is to evaluate psychometric properties of the Mental Health Service Barrier Assessment (MHSBA) instrument developed by the researchers to assess under-utilization of mental health services in 225 Korean Americans. The reliability of the instrument was high, with Cronbach's alpha, 0.93. Five distinct factors (dissatisfaction with service, lack of resources, attitude toward health care treatment, cost, and personal belief) and 3 additional clinically relevant factors (shame, family issues, and other resources) were identified. Also, the correlation between depression score and barrier score was shown to be low (r=.11), which may imply that the barrier may be a common problem irrespective of severity of depression. Additionally, the 10 most frequently selected barrier items in the MHSBA instrument were reported, while the people's belief of "mental problems are a natural part of our lives" was reported as the most common reason (selected by 71% of the participants) for not receiving or seeking mental health services. External validation of this instrument or its utility assessment is needed in Korean and other Asian Americans in future studies.