Parental cognitions and mental health treatment attitudes

Introduction: Parents’ beliefs and attitudes influence their motivation to engage in treatment for child mental health problems. However, few studies have examined how parental cognitions relate to treatment attitudes, particularly toward parent management training (PMT) for externalizing problems in clinical samples. This study investigated how beliefs about the possibility of change and perceived need for change relate to attitudes toward medication, psychotherapy, and PMT. We also explored which factors best predict treatment acceptability. Methods: Participants were 94 parents of children aged 3-12 years referred to a tertiary mental health centre. They completed validated measures assessing mindsets, failure beliefs, attributions, parenting practices, child symptom severity, readiness for change, and treatment attitudes. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted. Results: Regarding beliefs about the possibility of change, parental mindsets, failure beliefs, and attributions were significantly interrelated. Regarding beliefs about the perceived need for change, child problem severity was associated with greater readiness for change, while parenting practices were linked to mindset and attributions instead. Additionally, parent readiness for change uniquely predicted acceptability of PMT and was negatively associated with acceptability of medication, which was more strongly predicted by child symptom severity. Mindset about emotions uniquely predicted acceptability of child psychotherapy. Discussion: Clinicians should consider parental cognitions when working with families who are considering treatment options for child mental health. In particular, screening for mindset beliefs (about the possibility for change in child emotions) and parent readiness for change (including severity of child symptoms) can be helpful to match families to preferred interventions.