Indiana Consortium For Mental Health
Services Research
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

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Abstract

Reprint # 58: A FAMILY NETWORK-BASED MODEL OF ACCESS TO CHILD MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

E. Jane Costello, Bernice A. Pescosolido, Adrian Angold, and Barbara J. Burns

Recent epidemiologic studies have shown that around 20 percent of children and adolescents aged 8-18 have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder (Costello 1989b), but only about 4 percent of the child population has seen a mental health professional within recent months (Bums et al. 1995; Costello and Pantino 1987). Thus, there is a clear gap between need for care, defined as diagnosable disorder, and use of mental health services. There are other definitions of need (Costello, Bums, Angold, and Leaf 1993), but questions remain: Why this 4 percent? Are the "right" children getting care? Is 4 percent the "right" level of service use? These are ques- tions that researchers, providers, and policy makers need to answer and can use- fully be divided into two overlapping groups. Questions exist about access to the mental health service system, and about the use of different service sectors once