(PS8-B35) Differences in Mothers’ Help-seeking for and Perceptions of Early Childhood Depression, Anxiety, and ADHD

While about 66% of preschoolers with depression receive mental health treatment, this rate is only about 34% for preschoolers with anxiety or a behavioral disorder (Ghandour et al., 2019). This finding might be explained by differences in factors related to the help-seeking process, namely problem recognition, behavior severity, functional impairment, and stress. For example, previous research has shown that parents of preschoolers are more likely to recognize depression as a problem compared to externalizing disorders (McGinnis et al., 2021). Previous research has also shown parents who identify or label children’s behavior as a problem are more likely to seek help for it (Jorm, 2012). However, much of the prior research on this topic has examined these factors in grade-school children and adolescents, so it is not clear if these trends replicate in the preschool population. Additionally, it is not clear whether parent perceptions of all these factors differ by disorder or if these differences are meaningful. The current study addressed this gap. Participants were 82 adult mothers of preschoolers. They read a series of vignettes describing preschool-aged children exhibiting symptoms of depression, anxiety, and ADHD. They also read a control vignette describing a child with no clinical difficulties. Following each vignette, they were asked a series of questions to assess their problem recognition, perceptions of severity and impairment, stress, and likelihood of help-seeking for each of the behaviors presented. A correlational analysis demonstrated that problem recognition, severity, impairment, and stress were all positively associated with help-seeking (all rs ≥ .25, all ps < .05). A series of one-way repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed that there were significant differences among mothers’ ratings of all factors (all Fs ≥ 24.53, all ps < .001). Planned contrasts further found that there were significant differences between depression and the control for all factors (all ts ≤ -7.14, all ps < .001). However, there were only differences between depression and anxiety on problem recognition (t = -2.27, p = .02) and severity (t = -3.49, p < .001), and between depression and ADHD on problem recognition (t = -2.37, p = .02), severity (t = -3.60, p < .001), and help-seeking (t = -2.48, p = .01). Post-hoc comparisons found that were differences between anxiety and control and between ADHD and control across all factors (all ts ≥ 5.98, all ps < .001), and that there were no significant differences between anxiety and ADHD on any factors. These results demonstrate that mothers of preschoolers have different perceptions about depression compared to other childhood mental health difficulties. Specifically, mothers were more likely to label depression a problem compared to anxiety and ADHD, to rate depression as severe compared to anxiety and ADHD, and to endorse help-seeking for depression than for ADHD. The implications of these findings will be discussed.