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- Title
A Prospective Study on Structural and Attitudinal Barriers to Professional Help-Seeking for Currently Untreated Mental Health Problems in the Community.
- Authors
Tomczyk, Samuel; Schmidt, S.; Muehlan, H.; Stolzenburg, S.; Schomerus, G.
- Abstract
To date, little is known about the concurrent impact of structural and attitudinal factors on help-seeking behaviour for mental health problems. Therefore, this study investigated a longitudinal German community sample of adults with currently untreated mental health problems (N = 188, mean age = 50.34, 70.7% female) regarding perceived structural (e.g. accessibility) as well as attitudinal barriers (e.g. anticipated self-stigma) to help-seeking intentions and behaviour. Overall, perceived accessibility, spatial and temporal distance from mental health services predicted help-seeking. Among attitudinal factors, treatment efficacy beliefs were strongly connected to help-seeking. In addition, among people who knew where to find a psychologist or psychotherapist, anticipated self-stigma emerged as a significant barrier to help-seeking. Therefore, creating positive treatment expectancies and dismantling erroneous perceptions of structural aspects of mental health services hold promise to further close the gap in mental health care utilisation. However, the role of anticipated self-stigma within the help-seeking process requires further research.
- Subjects
MENTAL health services; SOCIAL problems; MENTAL health; PSYCHOTHERAPISTS; LONGITUDINAL method; PUBLIC health
- Publication
Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 2020, Vol 47, Issue 1, p54
- ISSN
1094-3412
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1007/s11414-019-09662-8