Mental health care utilization in three-to-six-year-old-children: which behaviours predict parents and daycare teachers’ perceived need for action?

ABSTRACT

Unmet mental health needs are common in young children. Recent research on mental health care utilization has focussed mainly on parental perspectives. This study seeks to determine which types of behaviours exhibited by children predict the perceived need for action among both parents and daycare teachers. Parents and daycare teachers reported on problematic behaviours and psychosocial competences among 255 children three to six years of age in Germany. Participants were additionally asked if they perceived a need for action due to the child's behaviour. The results indicate that for parents, Emotional Dysregulation, Speech Problems, and Health and Developmental Problems had predictive power. For daycare teachers, Aggressive Behaviour, Health and Developmental Problems, and the older Age of children predicted the perceived need for action, whereas Social Competence decreased the probability for perceived need. Sensitivity towards the detection of emotional disorders should be increased to improve mental health care utilization.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health problems
• early childhood
• mental health care utilization
• need for action
• daycare teacher

Acknowledgements

English-language editing of this manuscript was provided by Journal Prep Services.

Disclosure statement

The authors certify that they have NO affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest (such as honoraria; educational grants; participation in speakers’ bureaus; membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest; and expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements), or non-financial interest (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs) in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Notes

1 Externalizing behaviour problems refer mainly to a ‘grouping of behaviour problems that are manifested in children's outward behaviour and reflect the child negatively acting on the external environment’ (Liu, 2004, p. 93).

2 Hereinafter we refer to the term ‘Early Education and Care institutions’ as ‘daycare centres’ (German: Kindertageseinrichtungen), whereas Early Education and Care professionals are referred to as ‘daycare teachers’ (German: frühpädagogische Fachkräfte).

3 As there is no English version of the questionnaire, all translations are made by the author and are not authorized by the authors of the VSK, Koglin and Petermann.

4 The analysis of the answers given in this textfield are described in a different article (Hoffer, in press).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Doctoral study course ‘Versorgungsforschung: Collaborative Care’, supported by the Ministry of Science, Research and Art Baden-Württemberg.

Notes on contributors

Rieke Hoffer

Rieke Hoffer is a doctoral student and works as a researcher at the Centre for Child and Youth Research (ZfKJ) at the Research Association FIVE at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences, Freiburg, Germany. Her research interests cover child development, mental health and mental health care utilization.

Janina Strohmer

Janina Strohmer is a professor at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences, Freiburg, Germany. Her current research interests focus on professionalization of early childhood teachers, children's interests, diagnostics and research methods.