This study is a secondary data analysis using data from a cross-sectional study which examined youth and parents of youth receiving tertiary mental healthcare in Ontario, Canada (Ferro et al., 2019 (link)). A detailed description of the procedures for this study which recruited participants from inpatient and outpatient mental health services has been previously published (Ferro et al., 2019 (link)). Inclusion criteria included: (1) children aged 4–17, (2) those who were currently receiving mental health services at an inpatient or outpatient setting, and (3) children who screened positive for at least one mental illness with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview for Children and Adolescents (MINI-KID). The MINI-KID is a structured interview which assesses for presence of psychiatric illnesses following the DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria (Sheehan et al., 2010 ). The MINI-KID assesses for the presence of internalizing disorders (major depressive episode, separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, specific phobia, generalized anxiety disorder) and externalizing disorders (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and conduct disorder). The validity and reliability of the MINI-KID are similar to established diagnostic interviews (Högberg et al., 2019 (link); Duncan et al., 2018 (link); McDonald et al., 2021 (link)). The parent report was used in these analyses. Parents needed sufficient English skills to be included, and youth who were restricted in their capacity to complete the questionnaires due to their current state of mental health were excluded.
Initially, 259 children were found to be eligible per the inclusion criteria. There was an initial response of 144 child-parent pairs (56%) who provided consent. One hundred pairs (39%) were enrolled in the study. Of the 100 parents, one did not complete the questionnaires and two had incomplete data and were removed from the analysis, leading to a final sample of 97 parent and child pairs (37%).