Background

Parent engagement is critically important to the success of psychological treatments for children with disruptive behavior. Most studies on parental readiness for treatment have focused on mothers. Thus, many investigations do not fully capture clinical services that often involve assessment with multiple parents (e.g., mothers and fathers) simultaneously, including consideration of similarity and discrepancy in parents’ report of readiness. Better understanding the views and opinions of multiple caregivers may have implications for the uptake of clinical services.

Methods

The present study examined readiness for change amongst 107 mother-father dyads who were referred to a children’s mental health clinic because of their children’s disruptive behavior. Mothers and fathers reported on readiness for change, child mental health, and parenting behaviors, in addition to their own mental health difficulties.

Results

Intraclass correlations revealed that there was moderate agreement for all clinical variables within caregiver dyads, though readiness for change was the most discrepant and fathers were less ready. A structural equation model demonstrated that the strongest correlate of fathers’ readiness for change was mothers’ readiness, while mothers were more ready when their children had greater overall mental health problems.

Conclusions

When appropriate based on family composition, it may be important to consider readiness to engage in children’s mental health services for multiple caregivers during clinical intake assessments.

中文翻译：

---

准备好与否：临床样本中母亲和父亲是否准备好改变的预测因素

背景

家长的参与对于对有破坏性行为的儿童进行心理治疗的成功至关重要。大多数关于父母接受治疗准备情况的研究都集中在母亲身上。因此，许多调查并没有完全捕获临床服务，这些服务通常涉及同时对多个父母（例如母亲和父亲）进行评估，包括考虑父母准备情况报告中的相似性和差异。更好地了解多个护理人员的观点和意见可能会对临床服务的采用产生影响。

方法

本研究调查了 107 名因孩子的​​破坏性行为而被转介至儿童心理健康诊所的父母对改变的准备情况。除了他们自己的心理健康问题外，母亲和父亲还报告了改变的准备情况、儿童心理健康和养育行为。

结果

组内相关性显示，照顾者二人组中的所有临床变量都存在适度的一致性，尽管对变革的准备程度差异最大，而父亲的准备程度则较差。结构方程模型表明，父亲对变革的准备程度最强的相关性是母亲的准备程度，而当孩子的整体心理健康问题更大时，母亲的准备程度也更高。

结论

根据家庭构成，在适当的情况下，在临床摄入评估期间考虑为多名护理人员参与儿童心理健康服务的准备情况可能很重要。