Measuring Worker Cognitions About Parents of Children with Mental and Emotional Disabilities

Abstract

The development of an instrument for assessing workers' beliefs about parents of children receiving mental health--related services is presented. The instrument contributes to the study of parent--provider collaboration, an area that has received increasing attention in the field of child mental health. Test-retest reliability and confirmatory factor analysis are reported. Five factors emerged: parent blame, giving information, parent validation, use of psychotropic medications, and instructing parents how to help their children. Multiple regression of each factor on demographic variables and on respondents' preferred theoretical orientations showed differences in beliefs about parents among workers who endorsed psycho-dynamic, family systems, cognitive--behavioral, neuropsychological, or existential--humanistic models.