TPC-Journal-V4-Issue1

54 The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 1 1.35 1.63 1.52 1.54 1.4 1.68 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 Counselor Marriage & Family Therapist Psychiatrist Psychiatric Nurse Psychologist Social Worker Mean Frequency of Response Mental Health Service Provider Figure 2. A comparison of the category means of the perceptions of overall effectiveness of MHSPs (lower scores are more positive). Social workers received the highest percentage of unsure student responses (36.8%), followed closely by psychiatrists (36.4%), and MFTs (34.9%). These findings suggest the need for information and advocacy for these MHSPs in particular. Data from the present study also suggest that social workers have the highest amount of variance in participant responses (.520), while MFTs rank second (.486). For this study, variance is possibly an indication of misinformation and discrepant beliefs regarding the effectiveness of the MHSPs. Counselors had the least amount of variance (.281) when compared to the other MHSPs, suggesting that participants had more similar perceptions of counselor overall effectiveness when compared to the variance in perceptions of the other MHSPs. Discussion The U.S. Surgeon General’s 1999 report on mental health stated to the American people that “the efficacy of mental health treatment is well-documented,” and recommended to “seek help if you have a mental health problem or think you have symptoms of mental illness.” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (UDHHS; 2000, p. 13). The report further stipulated that stigmatization of mental illness is the greatest obstacle the United States faces in furthering the progress of individuals seeking mental health services (USDHHS, 2000). The present study highlights the need for the advocacy of MHSPs. Specifically, social workers, MFTs, and psychiatric nurses were perceived as significantly less effective overall than psychiatrists, counselors, and psychologists. This coincides with Consumer Reports’ 1994 Annual Questionnaire in which 4,000 subscribers who received some kind of mental health care between 1991 and 1994 responded to questions about their mental health care. This survey showed that participants were satisfied seeing social workers, psychologists, or psychiatrists (“Mental Health,” 1995). Those seeing a marriage and family therapist were slightly less satisfied