Stigma Affects How Parents Respond to their Children's Mental Health, But Does Child Gender Complicate the Story?

Abstract

Parents are influential gatekeepers to mental health services for children struggling with mental health issues, and their stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors towards mental illness may hinder help-seeking. Parents' gendered expectations throughout the help-seeking process may influence whether they pursue formal or informal support for their children. We advance stigma research by examining how stigma affects a parent's decision to seek formal and informal mental health support for their child depending on the child's gender. Using longitudinal data from a school-based anti-stigma intervention study among sixth-grade students, we analyzed the subsample of children who reported high mental health symptoms (n=217). Regression models assessed the role of parental stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors and child gender on parental formal and informal help-seeking, including the child's use of psychiatric medications. To examine gendered patterns to stigma and help-seeking, we tested interactions between parental stigmatizing attitudes and the child's self-reported gender on help-seeking behaviors. Mental health labeling and literacy were associated with proactive parental help-seeking behaviors, while discriminatory stigma dimensions like social distance decreased help-seeking. These stigma effects varied by child gender, particularly when it came to formal avenues of care: Labeling enhanced parental help-seeking for girls in formal settings, while social distance deterred medication use among girls. The results of the study suggest that effective interventions targeting mental illness and help-seeking must actively incorporate parental perspectives, address gender biases in mental health, and consider the nuanced ways in which gender may complicate stigma processes when it comes to help-seeking decisions.