The help-seeking process for parents of children with anxiety : a grounded theory
department or school: Education, Faculty of
department or school: Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Yu, Christine Margaret Shung-Bun
issued: 2025-04-23T20:57:39Z
issued: 2025
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Mental health is a fundamental component of overall health and well-being. However, a lack of service utilization for children and adolescents with mental health concerns is well documented in several countries. Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder across the lifespan. Multiple barriers to treatment have been identified in the literature and several models of help-seeking have been proposed. However, a unifying theory or model of help-seeking for child mental health services is lacking. One step to improve rates of service use for children with anxiety is to better understand the help-seeking process that parents engage in when seeking services. A Straussian grounded theory approach was used to investigate the process that parents engage in when seeking professional mental health services for their children struggling with anxiety. Ten semistructured interviews were conducted with parents, in addition to follow-up sessions to discuss additional or clarifying questions and incorporate participant feedback on the emerging theory. From the findings, being an advocate emerged as the core category. The core category facilitated parents’ movement through five phases of the help-seeking process for their children with anxiety: (a) recognizing anxiety as problematic, (b) deciding to seek professional mental health services, (c) initiating professional mental health services, (d) receiving professional mental health services, and (e) if necessary, reinitiating or being redirected to other professional mental health services. Movement through the phases was nonlinear and resulted from complex interactions of a variety of factors and environments. Parents often found themselves stuck in a loop, cycling between phases. The findings are contextualized within the extant literature, and implications for practice and policy are discussed.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/90742
note: THE HELP-SEEKING PROCESS FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH ANXIETY: A GROUNDED THEORY by CHRISTINE MARGARET SHUNG-BUN YU B.A., Simon Fraser University, 2005 M.A., University of British Columbia, 2012 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Counselling Psychology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2025 ã Christine Margaret Shung-Bun Yu, 2025 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: The help-seeking process for parents of children with anxiety: A grounded theory Submitted by Christine Margaret Shung-Bun Yu in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Counselling Psychology Examining Committee: Dr. Laurie Ford, Associate Professor, School and Applied Child Psychology, UBC Supervisor Dr. Richard Young, Professor Emeritus, Counselling Psychology, UBC Co-supervisor Dr. Anusha Kassan, Associate Professor, School and Applied Child Psychology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Thomas Schanding, Associate Professor, School and Applied Child Psychology, UBC University Examiner Dr. Shelly Ben-David, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, UBC-Okanagan University Examiner Dr. Christina Rinaldi, Professor, Educational Psychology Department, University of Alberta External Examiner iii Abstract Mental health is a fundamental component of overall health and well-being. However, a lack of service utilization for children and adolescents with mental health concerns is well documented in several countries. Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder across the lifespan. Multiple barriers to treatment have been identified in the literature and several models of help-seeking have been proposed. However, a unifying theory or model of help-seeking for child mental health services is lacking. One ste…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2025-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0448516
language: eng
degree discipline: Counselling Psychology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Ford, Laurie
contributor: Young, Richard A. (Richard Anthony), 1942-
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90742