Abstract
The relationship among consumer ethnicity and provider-consumer ethnic match and its effect on total composite satisfaction and four subscales measuring satisfaction (assess to care, appropriateness of care, outcome of treatment, and satisfaction with services) was examined with a sample of 1,022 White American, African American, Latino American, and Asian American adult community mental health consumers. Satisfaction was measured using the Mental Health Statistics Improvement Program (MSHIP) Consumer Survey. This measure consists of four subscales, access to care, appropriateness of care, perceived outcome, and satisfaction with services, plus a total composite satisfaction scale. After adjusting the dependent measures for three covariates (consumer-provider gender match, diagnosis, and referral source) composite satisfaction, access to care, and perceived outcome, and satisfaction with services had a significant relationship to consumer-provider ethnic match and consumer ethnicity. However, these findings were only present for certain ethnic groups for these dependent measures. The conclusions partially support the hypothesis. The present study found significant interactions between consumer-provider ethnic match and consumer ethnicity on total composite satisfaction and three of the four measures of satisfaction. Ethnic match produced significantly higher satisfaction among the Asian American consumers. Conversely, ethnic match had an opposite effect for the Latino consumers. Lastly, ethnic match had no significant effect for African American and White American consumers. Implications of these findings to community mental health practice are discussed.