Article Review Two

The Mental Health of Homeless School-Age Children

This is a quantitative research study that sought to find out information on the mental of health of homeless children as well as whether gender or ethnicity played a role in that mental health and if the children's self reports were aligned with the parent's reports.

Participants: Convenience sample of children from age 8 to 12 in homeless families. The homeless status was determined by whether the mother perceived themselves to be homeless and if the family was staying at a place in which they had not intended to stay at for more than 45 days. The total amount of children participating was 46 from 46 different families.

Data Collection: The participants are all from a midwestern metropolitan city. The homeless children and mothers were found within agencies that provided shelter and services to homeless families, soup kitchens, and a community settlement house. Also the researchers walked around the downtown area to find homeless families that may not use agencies or the other services provided. The researchers then interviewed the participants who agreed to the complete the study in as private a setting as possible, typically a closed off room in the place they were residing. The mother and child completed the interviews including a mental health survey separately.

Data Analysis: The information gained was analyzed and then the results from the two surveys were statistically compared to see if there was a significant difference between the two. There was also an analysis to see if there was a significant difference between the mother's perspective of the child's mental health and the child's perspective.

Conclusion: According to the researchers, the results show that the group met criteria for additional depression evaluation. The results also showed that there were no statistically significant differences between African American and Caucasian nor male and female. In regards to the information the mothers provided, the results showed that 26% of the children studied should have additional evaluation for other mental health issues.

This study did not have a large enough sample for it to be generalized to the population. Also, the fact that the sample was convenient means that the results could be skewed. These two reasons are the main ones that would lead me to not have faith in the results of the study. It could be seen as helpful in regards to showing that homeless children may need evaluation for mental health issues, but there was no comparison to children who are not considered homeless so the difference may not be significant. Therefore, the information in this study does not seem worth reading.

Menke, E. M. (1998). The mental health of homeless school-age children. Journal of child and adolescent psychiatric nursing, 11(3), Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/store/10.1111/j.1744-6171.1998.tb00020.x/asset/j.1744-6171.1998.tb00020.x.pdf?v=1&t=h8nw4cil&s=4844f9ff39d2ded2b41894e91f65faed92308ed3&systemMessage=Wiley Online Library will be disrupted on 27 October from 10:00-12:00 BST (05:00-07:00 EDT) for essential maintenance