Cultural adaptation of youth mental health first aid training for Asian American parents

Abstract

Although often portrayed as “model minorities,” many Asian American adolescents struggle with mental health problems. Asian American youth are also less likely to receive school-based mental health services (SBMHS) compared with their non-Asian peers. Culturally adapting the Youth Mental Health Fist Aid (YMHFA) training program can be an effective way to engage Asian American parents to utilize SBMHS. Although many school districts have offered YMHFA trainings to staff and parents, no controlled studies have evaluated the efficacy of YMHFA in the United States. We culturally adapted YMHFA for Asian American parents through collaboration with schools and community organizations, and evaluated its efficacy using a blocked random assignment study design. We examined if (a) YMHFA impacted parents' mental health literacy (MHL), help-seeking intentions, stigma, attitudes towards professional help, confidence in MHFA skills, engagement in first-aid behaviors, and youth mental health (both parent and youth report); and (b) whether the improvement was maintained four months after the training. Parents (n = 99, M_age = 46.24; SD_age = 6.80, 89 % mothers) were randomly assigned to treatment and waitlist control groups. They completed measures before the intervention, one month after the intervention, and four months after the intervention. Parents in the experimental group showed decreased stigma, and improvements in MHL, attitudes towards help seeking, confidence in using first aid behavior, and actual engagement in first aid behavior after attending the training as compared to parents in the waitlist control group. Participants in waitlist control group also showed improvements in all above-mentioned areas after receiving the training. All treatment gains were maintained at 4-month follow-up. Findings contributed to the limited literature on how to culturally adapt YMHFA for Asian American parents at school, and provided evidence for the efficacy of YMHFA among Asian American parents.