TPC-Journal-V4-Issue1

53 The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 1 positive by the frequency of perceptions: counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, MFTs, social workers, and psychiatric nurses. A visual comparison of participant responses is provided in Figure 1. The frequency of participants reporting negative perceptions ranked from highest to lowest in the following order: social workers, MFTs, psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, counselors and psychologists. When participants were asked to identify their opinions in regard to the overall effectiveness of each of the MHSPs in helping a mental health consumer, participants selected the “don’t know” option as follows: psychiatric nurses (17.6%), MFTs (8.8%), psychiatrists (7.3%), psychologists (5.7%), social workers (4.2%), and counselors (3.1%). 172 118 131 113 153 116 73 89 96 87 87 97 7 31 15 15 6 37 8 23 19 46 15 11 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 Counselor Marriage & Family Therapist Psychiatrist Psychiatric Nurse Psychologist Social Worker Frequency Mental Health Service Provider Positive Neutral Negative Don't Know Figure 1. Undergraduate perceptions of the overall effectiveness of MHSPs. Since the same participants rated each of the MHSP categories, t -tests were used to compare category means as represented in Figure 2. As expected, the data suggests significant differences in perceptions of MHSPs’ overall effectiveness when comparing the means from each MHSP category. Perceptions of the overall effectiveness of MFTs ( M = 1.63, SD = .703) were significantly more negative than the perceptions of the overall effectiveness of professional counselors (PC; M = 1.35, SD = .532); t (234) = 5.648, p < .001, as well as the overall effectiveness of psychologists ( M = 1.40, SD = .539); t (226) = 4.05, p < .001. MFT overall effectiveness ( M = 1.63, SD = .703) was perceived to be significantly more positive than psychiatric nurse overall effectiveness ( M = 1.54, SD = .624); t (203) = 2.104, p < .05. Counselor overall effectiveness ( M = 1.35, SD = .532) was perceived to be significantly more positive than psychiatrist overall effectiveness ( M = 1.52, SD = .612); t (238) = –3.589, p < .001. Psychiatrists were perceived as less effective overall ( M = 1.52, SD 612) than psychologists ( M = 1.40, SD = .539); t (236) = 2.934, p <.01.