Facilitators and barriers to support group participation for family caregivers of adults with mental illness.

Objective: Few low-income and minority caregivers of persons with serious mental illness participate in support groups. This study examined the facilitators and barriers to participation in support groups for families of persons with serious mental illness among lower socioeconomic African-American and Caucasian family caregivers. Three hypotheses were tested in a multivariate model which included need, enabling and predisposing variables utilizing a revised version of the Andersen model. Support group membership was hypothesized to be predicted by a higher perceived cost-benefit ratio (benefits minus costs) of group participation, fewer numbers of access barriers and higher levels of service use.

Methods: A non-experimental cross-sectional design was used. Subjects were 145 lower socioeconomic status African-American and Caucasian family caregivers, 65 of whom were current support group members and 80 of whom had never participated in support groups.

Results: Findings confirmed that support group members reported a more favorable cost-benefit ratio and fewer access barriers than did non-support group members, controlling for other variables. Level of non-support group service use was not significantly different for support and non-support group members.

Conclusions: Non-members' assessments of support group participation may be based on inaccurate perceptions and/or incomplete knowledge. Educational campaigns, sponsored by support groups and mental health authorities focusing on both perceptions about support groups as well as structural impediments to participation, such as access barriers, should be undertaken.