The mental health team as a differential decision-maker for child patients: a national survey.

Abstract

The attitudes of a national sample of 774 clinical psychologists, 791 psychiatric social workers, and 581 psychiatrists were sampled in a closed-ended survey research format to determine: (a) the relative degree of communality there is among members of the mental health team in the dispositional judgments they render; and (b) whether differential criteria are employed for placing a child patient in individual, group, or conjoint family therapy, or terminating from each of these modalities. 1200 Ss were sampled; rates were 41.0% and 39.3% respectively. Members of the mental health team strongly agree about the differential relevance of specific criteria for each decision-making condition. Variations in interdisciplinary frames of reference of respondents tended not to influence placement in or termination from the treatment modalities in question.