Motivation for Youth’s Treatment Scale (MYTS): A New Tool for Measuring Motivation Among Youths and Their Caregivers

Treatment motivation can be important for treatment adherence and outcomes, yet few measures of motivation are available for youths in mental health settings. These authors describe the psychometric properties of the motivation for youth’s treatment scale (MYTS), an 8-item measure with forms for youths and caregivers that assesses their problem recognition and treatment readiness. Results indicate that the MYTS offers practitioners and researchers a brief, psychometrically sound tool for assessing treatment motivation of youths and their caregivers. Multivariate analyses of clinical and non-clinical characteristics of youths and caregivers show that youths’ symptom severity consistently predicts treatment motivation for both groups. However, the strain of caring for the youth adds significantly to caregivers’ recognition of the youth’s troubles. While caregiver and youth motivations correlate, their agreement is low. Caregivers are nearly always more treatment motivated than youths. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for measurement, treatment planning, and future research.