Comparing Psychotherapeutic Treatment Rates in University Counseling Centers between American Latinx and International Latinx University Students

ABSTRACT

As the press for services at university counseling centers increases, so does the need to provide optimal therapeutic services. Ethnic glossing in previous research has combined rather disaggregated the mental health treatment experiences of American Latinx (AL) students and International Latinx (IL) students. The purpose of this paper was to examine potential differences in (1) the number of attended sessions, (2) symptom severity, and (3) treatment improvement rates. We used a nationwide dataset including 13,156 AL students and 911 IL students. Results indicated that (1) there was no significant difference in attendance rates, (2) AL students had significantly worse initial symptom severity (d = 0.24), and (3) there were no significant differences in improvement rates. We discuss the importance of understanding the different clinical presentations of AL and IL students, as well as the importance of addressing ethnic glossing in future research and clinical work.

KEYWORDS:

• Latinx
• psychotherapy
• university students
• counseling centers
• young adults

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Researchers have increasingly used Latinx as a gender-inclusive cultural identifier to acknowledge the array and invisibility of sexual and gender identities of the lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) population in Spanish-dominant countries (Scharrón-del Río & Aja, 2020). For this paper, we will use Latinx to encompass all those with origins in Spanish-dominant countries, including those of the LGBTQ population.