Abstract
Mental health and substance use issues affect millions of adults and adolescents in the United States and contribute heavily to the burden of disease. More than 21% of adolescents aged 13–18 experiences a severe mental health disorder at some point during their life, while an estimated 414,000 adolescents aged 12 to 17 had a substance use disorder (SUD) in 2019. Moreover, adolescents who identify as Hispanics have reported varying rates of mental health conditions and substance use compared to their non-Hispanic peers. Although treatment options are prevalent, there is an extensive treatment gap as only 1.3 percent of adolescents in need received both the necessary mental health care and specialty substance use treatment in 2019. Studies have found that family plays a major role in the initiation, progression and treatment of SUDs among adolescents, as adolescents with SUDs rarely acknowledge the need of treatment and almost never seek treatment on their own. For this very reason, parents play a critical role as “gatekeepers” for their children’s receipt of treatment. However, discrepancies between parent and adolescent reports of psychiatric symptomatology have often been found in the literature. Thus, the examination of the role of select individual and family level variables become critical in enabling the isolation of relevant risk and protective factors that may be related to discrepancies. The theoretical framework used to inform this research study is the Structural Ecosystems Theory. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between individual and family level variables and discrepancy in reports of psychiatric symptomatology among substance abusing Hispanic adolescents ages 14 to 18. This study was a secondary data analysis using cross-sectional data from a convenient sub- sample of 152 Hispanic adolescents, and their mothers. Less than two thirds of adolescent maternal dyads reported discrepancies in psychiatric symptomatology, while there were minimal differences based on the type of symptomatology. None of the individual or family level variables emerged as significant predictors of discrepancy, adding to a body of largely inconsistent research findings. Further examination of factors that may influence discrepancies in reporting remains critical as they are likely improve treatment outcomes. Nonetheless, caregivers and health care providers may benefit from extensive education regarding mental illness and benefits of treatment and the optimization of adequate screening measures to ensure early detection of symptomatology.