Vanderbilt Mental Health Self Efficacy Questionnaire

Abstract: The Vanderbilt Mental Health Self Efficacy Questionnaire was developed and used by Bickman and his colleagues (1991) as part of the Family Empowerment Project. The measure consists of 25 Likert scale items measuring parents' self efficacy beliefs and behavioral expectations about obtaining and participating in mental health treatment for their children. Self efficacy is a parent's assessment of his or her ability to meet a desired goal. Parents rate each item from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). Whether or not parents receive this measure depended on their responses in the Service Assessment for Children and Adolescents (SACA) measure. The VMHSEQ is only administered if a parent reported in the SACA that their child received services from a list of facilities/providers In year 11/grade10, this measure was erroneously given to all parents in cohort 1, regardless of their responses to the SACA questions. The analyses in this report, however, only include the parents who were supposed to be given the VHMSEQ measure. Following the procedure developed by Bickman and his colleagues (1998), the 25 items in this measure are combined to create one scale capturing a parent's self efficacy regarding mental health services for their child. The 25 Likert items are summed together after the values for several of the items are reversed such that higher values indicate higher levels of self efficacy. The Mental Health Self Efficacy Scale has high reliability and has a normal distribution when the one outlier with a value of 37 is excluded from the sample. See Bickman, Heflinger, Northrup, Sonnichsen, & Schilling (1998) for an example of its use.

Who Completed this Measure?: Parent

Cohort 1 - Administrative History

  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
  • Year 13 | grade 12 | age 18

Cohort 2 - Administrative History

  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
  • Year 13 | grade 12 | age 18

Cohort 3 - Administrative History

  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
  • Year 13 | grade 12 | age 18

Technical Reports:

Raw Dataset Name: PyAF

Scored Dataset Name: VMHySPc

Keywords:
Mental Health Treatment, Parental Involvement, Service Quality

Is this Measure Available for Public Use?: No

Obtain Measure:

Vanderbilt Mental Health Services Efficacy
Leonard B. Bickman
Vanderbilt Center for Mental Health Policy
1207 18 Avenue South
Nashville,TN 37212
615-322-8027