This paper summarises an ambitious research agenda aiming to uncover the factors that affect help-seeking among young people for mental health problems. The research set out to consider why young people, and particularly young males, do not seek help when they are in psychological distress or suicidal; how professional services be made more accessible and attractive to young people; the factors that inhibit and facilitate help-seeking; and how community gatekeepers can support young people to access services to help with personal and emotional problems. A range of studies was undertaken in New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data from a total of 2721 young people aged 14-24 years were gathered, as well as information from some of the community gatekeepers to young people’s mental health care. Help-seeking was measured in all the studies using the General Help Seeking Questionnaire (Wilson, Deane, Ciarrochi & Rickwood, 2005), which measures future help-seeking intentions and, through supplementary questions, can also assess prior help-seeking experience. Many of the studies also measured recent help-seeking behaviour using the Actual Help Seeking Questionnaire. The types of mental health problems examined varied across the studies and included depressive symptoms, personal-emotional problems, and suicidal thoughts. The help-seeking process was conceptualised using a framework developed during the research program. This framework maintains that help-seeking is a process of translating the very personal domain of psychological distress to the interpersonal domain of seeking help. Factors that were expected to facilitate or inhibit this translation process were investigated. These included factors that determine awareness of the personal domain of psychological distress and that affect the ability to articulate or express this personal domain to others, as well as willingness to disclose mental health issues to other people. The results are reported in terms of: patterns of help-seeking across adolescence and young adulthood; the relationship of help-seeking intentions to behaviour; barriers to seeking help—lack of emotional competence, the help-negation effect related to suicidal thoughts, negative attitudes and beliefs about helpseeking and fear of stigma; and facilitators of seeking help—emotional competence, positive past experience, mental health literacy, and supportive social influences. The paper considers the implications of the findings for the development of interventions to encourage young people to seek help for their mental health problems, and concludes by identifying gaps in the help-seeking research and literature and suggesting future directions.

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Young people’s help-seeking for mental health problems

• Despite the high prevalence of mental health problems and disorders that develop in adolescence and early adulthood, young people tend to not seek professional help. Young men and young people from Indigenous and ethnic minority groups tend to be those most reluctant to seek help. • Young people are more inclined to seek help for mental health problems if they: ae have some knowledge about mental health issues and sources of help; ae feel emotionally competent to express their feelings; and ae have established and trusted relationships with potential help providers. • Young people are less likely to seek help if they: ae are experiencing suicidal thoughts and depressive symptoms; ae hold negative attitudes toward seeking help or have had negative past experiences with sources of help; or ae hold beliefs that they should be able to sort out their own mental health problems on their own. • Young people may seek help through talking to their family and friends, with family being more important for younger adolescents, and friends and partners becoming more influential later on.

https://works.bepress.com/cwilson/16/download/

When and how do young people seek professional help for mental health problems

Young people's help-seeking for mental health problems.

In this article, a mental health help-seeking model is offered as a framework for understanding cultural and contextual factors that affect ethnic minority adolescents' pathways into mental health services. The effects of culture and context are profound across the entire help-seeking pathway, from problem identification to choice of treatment providers. The authors argue that an understanding of these help-seeking pathways provides insights into ethnic group differences in mental health care utilization and that further research in this area is needed.

Cultural and contextual influences in mental health help seeking: a focus on ethnic minority youth.

Understanding help seeking intentions and behaviour is fundamental to the identification of factors that can be modified to increase engagement in counselling. Despite considerable research on these variables, integrating prior research has been impeded by a lack of consistent and psychometrically sound help-seeking measures. The General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ) was developed to assess intentions to seek help from different sources and for different problems. Using a sample of 218 high school students, the GHSQ was found to have satisfactory reliability and validity, and appears to be a flexible measure of help-seeking intentions that can be applied to a range of contexts.

/pdf/measuring-help-seeking-intentions-properties-of-the-general-41addverux.pdf

Measuring help-seeking intentions: Properties of the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire

Adolescent help-seeking: what do they get help for and from whom?

The purpose of this investigation was to describe the psychological characteristics and reactions of injured athletes and to examine the changes in these reactions throughout their rehabilitation. This study examined 136 elite injured athletes from 25 sports at four phases: upon injury, partial recovery, semi-recovery, and full recovery. Injury appraisal, athlete's demographics, and emotional and psychological variables were measured. Duration of injuries ranged from 4 to 99 weeks (M = 19 weeks). Changes were examined through a series of repeated measure MAN-OVAs with polynomial contrasts. Findings were typically as expected: increased confidence and vigor and decreased negative emotional responses over the recovery period. The changes over the recovery period were not always at a constant rate. Confidence of adhering to rehabilitation, passive, and emotion-focused coping, remained stable over time. The initial injury appraisal, regarding anticipated loss of time and the psychological impact of t...

The changes in psychological characteristics and reactions of elite athletes from injury onset until full recovery

One thousand and twenty-two secondary school aged adolescents identified a major and a minor problem that they experienced in the previous 6 months. The adolescents indicated if they had sought help for their problems, and, if so, from whom. They also indicated how intimate, serious, and stigmatising the problems were as well as the degree to which they were responsible for the cause of the problems. Most problems were in the domains of family, interpersonal relationships, education, and health. Approximately one third of the respondents reported both their major and their minor problem from within the same domain. The majority of adolescents sought help from the nonprofessional help sources of parents and friends. It was possible to identify consistent help-seekers, occasional help-seekers, and the help-avoiders. Neither the type of problem nor the school year level differentiated between the groups. Females were more likely than males to seek help on both occasions.

Adolescent Help‐seeking for Major and Minor Problems

In previous research, family structure variables have been operationalized as family size, birth order, sibling spacing, and sibling density. These structure variables have been linked to parental strictness, reasonableness, and supportiveness [J. S. Kidwell (1981), “Number of Siblings, Sibling Spacing, and Birth Order: Their Effects on Perceived Parent–Adolescent Relationships,” Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 43, pp. 315–333]. Other research has drawn attention to the link between the amount of time adolescents spend with parents and peers and the influence of family relations variables—intensity, duration, and frequency of conflicts. [R. Montemayor (1982), “The Relationship Between Parent–Adolescent Conflict and the Amount of Time Adolescents Spend Alone and with Parents and Peers,” Child Development, Vol. 53, pp. 1512–1519]. More recent research has related family structure (family size, sibling spacing, and gender) effects to the amount of time adolescents spend with parents, a measure of relationship quality, and a set of measures of discipline [R. A. Richardson et al. (1986), “Parent–Child Relationships in Early Adolescence: Effects of Family Structure,” Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 48, pp. 805–811]. To date, the questions asked by researchers have not simultaneously explored whether it is the family relations or the family structure variables that contribute most powerfully to the amount of time that female and male adolescents spend with family members and peers. In this research adolescents were asked to report the amount of time they spend with their mother, father, siblings, and peers, and to respond to a questionnaire that has three factors that define family functioning: Parenting Style (democratic decision making), Intimacy, and Conflict [P. Noller et al. (1992), “Parent and Adolescent Perceptions of Family Functioning: A Comparison of Clinic and Nonclinic Family, Journal of Adolescence, Vol. 15, pp. 101–115]. The analyses revealed that complex and interpretable family structure and family functioning factors differentially influence whether males and females spend time with family members and peers.

The Effect of Family Structure and Family Functioning on Adolescents' Perceptions of Intimate Time Spent with Parents, Siblings, and Peers.

(1997). The balance between paid work and home responsibilities: Personal problem or corporate concern? Australian Psychologist: Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 1-9.

Barry J. Fallon

Papers

Adolescent help-seeking: what do they get help for and from whom?

The changes in psychological characteristics and reactions of elite athletes from injury onset until full recovery

Adolescent Help‐seeking for Major and Minor Problems

The Effect of Family Structure and Family Functioning on Adolescents' Perceptions of Intimate Time Spent with Parents, Siblings, and Peers.

The balance between paid work and home responsibilities: Personal problem or corporate concern?