This study investigated a new 2-factor construct, termed "cultural congruence", which is related to cultural competence in the delivery of mental health services to ethnic minority clients. Cultural congruence was defined as the distance between the cultural competence characteristics of the health care organization and the clients' perception of…

The majority of mental health clinicians are monolingual and white. Even if unbiased assessment techniques are developed, valid psychodiagnosis of Hispanic patients will remain illusory to the extent that clinicians are insensitive to the linguistic and cultural nuances of their clientele. Recommendations for improving clinical practice are…

Nearly half the population who seeks mental health services in the century ahead will be ethnic minorities. Evidence suggests that Hispanics, who are the fastest growing minority group, present higher levels of psychiatric symptomatology and prevalence rates of disorders. A discussion is included on process variables that can inform social…

Administered the TEMAS (Tell Me a Story) test to 73 public school and 210 clinical Puerto Rican children. Story content was scored for nine personality functions and descriptive indexes. Results indicated internal consistency and interrater reliability. TEMAS indexes significantly discriminated between school and clinical samples. (BH)

Evaluated treatment outcomes from program of research on modeling therapy with Puerto Ricans, targeting anxiety symptoms, acting-out behavior, and self-concept problems. Findings from 210 primary grade children and their mothers confirmed impact of culturally sensitive modeling therapy on anxiety symptoms and other target behaviors, but negative…

Compares verbal fluency of 156 K-6 urban children (72 Hispanic, 41 Black, 43 White) using the Thematic Apperception Test and two versions of TEMAS, a new thematic apperception test using minority or nonminority characters, cultural themes, and urban backgrounds. Finds females more verbally fluent and Hispanics/Blacks more fluent on TEMAS. (MH)

Idioms of anger salient to mental health identified by focus groups of Puerto Rican adults were administered to community (n=403) and clinical (n=128) samples of Puerto Rican respondents in a rating scale format. Results suggest that taking cultural expression of symptomatology into account enhances the assessment of mental health. (SLD)

In this study, 148 Hispanic Americans with schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorders were interviewed in English, Spanish, or both. Hispanic clinicians rated symptoms more severely than did Anglo clinicians, and severity was rated highest in bilingual interviews, followed by Spanish, and lowest in English. Implications for diagnosis and…

Developed hero/heroine intervention based on adult Puerto Rican role models to foster ethnic identity, self-concept, and adaptive coping behavior. Screened 90 Puerto Rican eighth and ninth graders for presenting behavior problems in school and randomly assigned them to intervention or control groups. After 19 sessions, intervention significantly…

Mental health clinical services research has emphasized the urgency of developing new psychometric instruments for non-biased psychological assessment of minority and non-minority children of diverse cultural groups in the United States. Background multicultural standardization and validation information is presented for Tell-Me-A-Story (TEMAS)--a…