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Neuroscience
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Abstract
Background: There are many factors that prevent members of the Hispanic/Latino community from accessing mental health resources. This is important to investigate because there is a lack of knowledge on why residents of the Rio Grande Valley, an underserved region of South Texas, are unable to access and/or utilize mental health resources.
Methods: A focus group session was held at a mental health counseling clinic in Cameron County, Texas on February 1, 2024. The participants consisted of mental health professionals, such as two mental health clinicians, a clinical counselor, two school counselors, a licensed professional counselor supervisor, and a graduate rehab counseling intern. The sampling technique that we used was purposive sampling. We chose specific participants that met the criteria of being a mental health professional to join the focus group. Conversations were recorded in this focus group session by using a Yeti Nano microphone and the audio file was used to create transcripts through Microsoft Word. NVivo 14 for Windows by Lumivero was used to code the transcript following a codebook that contained themes for the questions that were asked to the mental health professionals. Codes were created for each of the themes and coded what was said by each of the mental health professionals based on the theme it aligned with. By doing this, we were able to identify mental health disparities through the opinions of mental health professionals that serve the Rio Grande Valley. A word frequency search was performed for the twenty-five most frequent words in a specific code, “Access to mental health services,” and proceeded to create a text search query for each of the words. The text search query allowed us to see the number of references for each word, as well as the percentage of their coverage in the specific code they were found in.
Results: We found that the twenty-five most common words in the code “Access to mental health services”, and their percentage of coverage, were status (0.20%), counseling (0.12%), community (0.37%), therapy (0.08%), people (0.06%), believe (0.08%), issues (0.05%), mental (0.03%), enforcement (0.05%), depression (0.03%), normalize (0.05%), session (0.02%), medication (0.09%), provide (0.07%), protect (0.08%), understand (0.11%), parents (0.04%), tropical (0.02%), separated (0.06%), agencies (0.03%), cultural (0.01%), facilities (0.02%), identity (0.03%), payment (0.02%), and programs (0.03%). Most of the words relate to poverty, stigma, lack of support, and lack of knowledge of available resources.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that mental health clinicians believe that there are a variety of barriers, such as poverty, lack of knowledge about resources, stigma, and lack of support that prevent residents of the Rio Grande Valley from seeking mental healthcare services. These preliminary findings are a first step in establishing a community-academic partnership that aims to promote and facilitate translational science approaches in community-based research in a predominantly Hispanic/Latino population.
Recommended Citation
Linder, Shania M.; Botello, Cristian; Villarreal, Raquel; Rodriguez, Nelda; Gil, Mario; and Zamora, Dayana, "A qualitative approach to identifying obstacles to mental healthcare in the Rio Grande Valley from the perspective of mental healthcare professionals." (2025). Research Symposium. 147.
https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/somrs/2025/posters/147
Included in
Clinical Epidemiology Commons, Clinical Psychology Commons, Community Health Commons, Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Community Psychology Commons, Social Work Commons
A qualitative approach to identifying obstacles to mental healthcare in the Rio Grande Valley from the perspective of mental healthcare professionals.
Background: There are many factors that prevent members of the Hispanic/Latino community from accessing mental health resources. This is important to investigate because there is a lack of knowledge on why residents of the Rio Grande Valley, an underserved region of South Texas, are unable to access and/or utilize mental health resources.
Methods: A focus group session was held at a mental health counseling clinic in Cameron County, Texas on February 1, 2024. The participants consisted of mental health professionals, such as two mental health clinicians, a clinical counselor, two school counselors, a licensed professional counselor supervisor, and a graduate rehab counseling intern. The sampling technique that we used was purposive sampling. We chose specific participants that met the criteria of being a mental health professional to join the focus group. Conversations were recorded in this focus group session by using a Yeti Nano microphone and the audio file was used to create transcripts through Microsoft Word. NVivo 14 for Windows by Lumivero was used to code the transcript following a codebook that contained themes for the questions that were asked to the mental health professionals. Codes were created for each of the themes and coded what was said by each of the mental health professionals based on the theme it aligned with. By doing this, we were able to identify mental health disparities through the opinions of mental health professionals that serve the Rio Grande Valley. A word frequency search was performed for the twenty-five most frequent words in a specific code, “Access to mental health services,” and proceeded to create a text search query for each of the words. The text search query allowed us to see the number of references for each word, as well as the percentage of their coverage in the specific code they were found in.
Results: We found that the twenty-five most common words in the code “Access to mental health services”, and their percentage of coverage, were status (0.20%), counseling (0.12%), community (0.37%), therapy (0.08%), people (0.06%), believe (0.08%), issues (0.05%), mental (0.03%), enforcement (0.05%), depression (0.03%), normalize (0.05%), session (0.02%), medication (0.09%), provide (0.07%), protect (0.08%), understand (0.11%), parents (0.04%), tropical (0.02%), separated (0.06%), agencies (0.03%), cultural (0.01%), facilities (0.02%), identity (0.03%), payment (0.02%), and programs (0.03%). Most of the words relate to poverty, stigma, lack of support, and lack of knowledge of available resources.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that mental health clinicians believe that there are a variety of barriers, such as poverty, lack of knowledge about resources, stigma, and lack of support that prevent residents of the Rio Grande Valley from seeking mental healthcare services. These preliminary findings are a first step in establishing a community-academic partnership that aims to promote and facilitate translational science approaches in community-based research in a predominantly Hispanic/Latino population.
