(PS3-47) Youth and Caregiver Preferences for Youth Mental Health Treatment: A Scoping Review

Abstract Text: Patient-centered care, which emphasizes preference-sensitive care, is a clear priority for youth mental health services (Asarnow et al., 2017). Studies with adults demonstrate that consideration of patient preferences is linked to better treatment outcomes (e.g., Swift et al., 2018). The field’s understanding of treatment preferences for youth mental health treatment is less developed, however, in part due to the complexity of determining how preferences of multiple informants (i.e. caregivers and children) may impact treatment processes and outcomes. The current scoping review will report on rates of youth and caregiver treatment preferences, in addition to correlates of these preferences.

We elected to conduct a scoping review to summarize research findings and clarify concepts in this emerging topic (Munn et al., 2018). We generated specific search criteria that would identify ‘core’ studies on youth/caregiver treatment preferences (n = 47) across two different databases, and then used an ascendancy/descendancy approach to ensure that our search of the literature base was comprehensive. This resulted in a total number of (n = 2,130) studies whose eligibility are being assessed for inclusion and data extraction.

The proposed poster (and eventual paper) will comprise three parts. In part 1, we will describe the preference assessment methods and samples of the eligible studies.. In part 2, we will report descriptive statistics documenting rates and variability of preferences, grouped by reporter (e.g., caregiver, youth) and preference focus (e.g., treatment approach, provider qualities). In part 3, we will report on correlates of preferences (e.g., youth/caregiver characteristics, symptom profiles, treatment processes, treatment outcomes). Given the history of disparities in the way that mental health care is provided and conceptualized for individuals with minority identities, this review will emphasize findings that address how preferences in youth psychotherapy may differ across cultural or identity contexts..

This novel review marks an important step in the expansion of patient-centered care to youth-mental health treatment contexts. Understanding of how youth and caregiver preferences may vary across psychological, social, individual, and environmental contexts will aid researchers and clinicians in the development of preference-responsive care approaches, which is likely to increase client engagement and treatment efficacy.