Are parents’ geographical origin associated with their evaluation of child and adolescent mental health services? Results from a national survey in Norway

• Published in: European child & adolescent psychiatry 2021-07, Vol.30 (7), p.1027-1035
• Main Authors: Bjertnaes, Oyvind, Iversen, Hilde Hestad, Skudal, Kjersti Eeg, Ali, Warsame Abdullahi, Hanssen-Bauer, Ketil
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescents; Asian cultural groups; Child & adolescent mental health; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Children; Content analysis; European cultural groups; Evaluation; Health services; Medical diagnosis; Medical personnel; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental health; Mental health services; Original Contribution; Parents & parenting; Polls & surveys; Psychiatry; Psychosocial factors; Sentiment analysis; Teenagers
• ISSN: 1018-8827; 1435-165X
• DOI: 10.1007/s00787-020-01590-9

The objective was to assess the association between parents’ geographical origin and their evaluation of outpatient child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Data were collected in a national parent’s experience survey of all outpatient CAMHS in Norway in 2017. Following exclusions, 16,143 parents were part of the study, of which 5932 responded (36.1%). Diagnosis and global psychosocial functional level were collected from the National Patient Register. Multilevel regression was used to assess the association between parents’ geographical origin and parent evaluation of the outpatient CAMHS on ten indicators. Sentiment and content analysis was conducted on open-ended comments from parents. The estimated regression coefficients showed that parents born in Eastern Europe scored the services significantly poorer than parents born in Norway on outcome of treatment (− 7.73, p