Abstract

Korean teachers' and parents' attitudes concerning child's psychological problems were investigated in order to understand the referral process for professional evaluation and treatment. 375 of elementary school teachers and 261 of parents were given 2 vignettes and asked to give their opinions about the prevalence, degree of their concern and expected prognosis, cause and treatment of choice for each of the cases described in the vignettes. One of the vignettes described a child with externalizing problem, while the other described a child with internalizing problem. The results can be summarized as follows: 1) Korean adults reported that the number of boys with externalizing problem was larger than those with internalizing problem while there was no significant difference for girls. They also rated the child with externalizing problem as more serious, more worrisome to teachers and parents, and less likely to improve than the child with internalizing problem. 2) The Korean adults chose stress as the most likely cause of the child's problem regardless of the problems type, 3) As for treatment, they chose psychological counseling. The above results were compared with the data obtained from Thai and American adults. Thai and American also rated externalizing problem as more serious than internalizing problem. But, for level of concern, perceived cause and treatment of choice, there seemed to exist considerable differences among the cultures. These cultural differences in the adults' attitudes concerning the cause and treatment of child psychological problem are likely to have significant influence on the referral process of children with psychological problems and thus need to be considered when designing mental health programs for children.