Latina mothers' help seeking at a school-based mutual support group

Low-income Latino parents constitute a vulnerable population who are underserved by traditional mental health services but difficult to recruit to more culturally sensitive community interventions. In order to identify factors that may facilitate participation, a cognitive-motivational framework was employed to study help seeking at a school-based mutual support group (MSG) for low-income Latino parents. Phone interview data from 75 Latina mothers generally supported hypothesized differences between nonattenders and at tenders. Specifically, attenders initially reported (a) greater parenting stress, (b) less confidence in parenting abilities but comparable psychological coping resources, (c) less satisfaction with and greater need for social support, (d) less negative attitudes toward help seeking, and (e) more previous school involvement. A discriminant analysis revealed that need for parenting advice and prior school involvement accounted for 34% of the variance between attenders and nonattenders. Implications for enhancing program utilization are discussed.