Lifetime Mental Health and Treatment Readiness among Parents of Children with Externalizing Behavior

Abstract

Parental lifetime mental disorder symptoms were investigated as a moderator of the association between readiness for treatment and severity of child externalizing behaviors (EB) among 165 parents of clinic-referred children. Readiness and parental mental disorder symptoms were positively associated with greater child EB severity. Mental disorder symptoms moderated the association between parent readiness and child EB, such that among parents with fewer lifetime symptoms, greater readiness for treatment was associated with greater child EB severity. However, readiness was not associated with child EB severity at high levels of parental mental disorder symptoms. Implications for pre-treatment screening and tailoring behavioral parenting treatments are discussed.

Keywords:

• Externalizing behavior
• parental mental health
• behavioral parent training
• readiness for treatment
• transtheoretical model

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Marcos Sanches for his guidance with the data analysis.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Dr. Brendan Andrade’s New Investigator Fellowship (Ontario Mental Health Foundation) and the Career Development Award (Canadian Child Health Clinician-Scientist Program).