title: Why are we here at the clinic? Parent-child (dis)agreement on referral problems at outpatient treatment entry.
abstract: Do clinic-referred children and their parents agree on the problems for which treatment is undertaken? The authors asked 381 outpatient-clinic-referred children and their parents to list, independently, the child's target problems. Of the parent-child pairs, 63% failed to agree on even a single problem. When problems were grouped into broad categories (e.g., delinquent, withdrawn), more than a third of the pairs still failed to agree on a single broad problem area. Parent-child agreement was higher for externalizing than for internalizing problem categories (though poor for both). Low parent-child agreement may help explain the poor outcomes often reported for clinic-based child therapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. myeh@casrc.org
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yeh
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Weisz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D012017:Referral and Consultation