Comparison of family factors influencing children and adolescents' mental health in Chinese American, Asian and non-Asian families

Because of the influence of Western culture and differential generational acculturation that leads to increased family conflict, Chinese and Chinese American youth were targeted as a potential high risk population affected by mental health problems. To address children and adolescents' mental diseases, this study seeks to identify the risk and protective family factors contributing to these mental health and behavioral problems among youth in Chinese and Chinese American families, and the necessity of applying evidence-based family programs as an intervention strategy to prevent youth mental disorders. A Phase 1 needs assessment survey was conducted to determine if there were high levels of family conflict and mental health problems in Chinese children in the USA compared to other Asian and non-Asian families (n = 155). In Phase 2, a quasiexperimental, repeated measures design was used to compare the results of Asian and non-Asian families to see if the Strengthening Families Program (SFP) would likely be effective for Chinese families because of being effective for Asian families in the USA similarly xperiencing differential generational acculturation. Self-report data on 21 parenting, child, and family outcomes were collected from parent's self report using a standardize questionnaire. One hundred fifty-five participants were from three sources-Chinese families in Salt Lake City (50), a normative comparison group of 56 Asian intervention families group, and 49 non-Asian matched families from the SFP database. The analysis of the pretest data for the three groups revealed there were fewer mental health and behavior problems reported by the convenience sample of Chinese families compared to the Asian and non-Asian families. Also it revealed that the family intervention was very effective in reducing mental health risk factors for the Asian families and youth compared with the non-Asian Americans group. The limitation of this study is that the participating Chinese families were not as high risk at baseline in this study as the other two groups. However, this study does suggest that there are areas of mental health problems that can be improved in Chinese families. Areas of similarities between the outcomes from Asian American families and Chinese families include parental, family protective factors, and children behavioral and emotional outcomes.