Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help: Factor Structure and Socio-Demographic Predictors

Efficacy of a guided internet-based intervention (iSOMA) for somatic symptoms and related distress in university students: study protocol of a randomised controlled trial

INTRODUCTION

Persistent and distressing somatic symptoms are common in younger age cohorts such as university students. However, the majority does not receive adequate psychosocial care. Internet-based and mobile-based interventions may represent low threshold and effective extensions to reduce somatic and associated mental symptom severity. The planned study aims to investigate the feasibility and efficacy of an internet-based intervention in reducing somatic and psychological symptoms in an international population of university students with somatic symptom burden.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

This parallel two-armed randomised controlled trial evaluates an 8-week guided intervention, including web-based consecutive modules based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) principles against a waitlist control group. Guidance will be provided by trained psychologists with weekly written supportive feedback. As part of the 'Studicare' project, the present study aims to recruit n=154 university students indicating somatic symptom burden at baseline in German-speaking universities. Self-report assessments will take place at baseline and after intervention completion (8, 16 weeks after randomisation). The primary outcome will be the severity of somatic symptoms and associated mental distress. Secondary outcomes include depression, (health) anxiety, disability, intervention satisfaction and adherence.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethics approval has been granted. Results from this study will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

DRKS00014375; Pre-results.

The Singaporean public beliefs about the causes of mental illness: results from a multi-ethnic population-based study

AIMS

To identify the common causal beliefs of mental illness in a multi-ethnic Southeast Asian community and describe the sociodemographic associations to said beliefs. The factor structure to the causal beliefs scale is explored. The causal beliefs relating to five different mental illnesses (alcohol abuse, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), dementia and schizophrenia) and desire for social distance are also investigated.

METHODS

Data from 3006 participants from a nationwide vignette-based study on mental health literacy were analysed using factor analysis and multiple logistic regression to address the aims. Participants answered questions related to sociodemographic information, causal beliefs of mental illness and their desire for social distance towards those with mental illness.

RESULTS

Physical causes, psychosocial causes and personality causes were endorsed by the sample. Sociodemographic differences including ethnic, gender and age differences in causal beliefs were found in the sample. Differences in causal beliefs were shown across different mental illness vignettes though psychosocial causes was the most highly attributed cause across vignettes (endorsed by 97.9% of respondents), followed by personality causes (83.5%) and last, physical causes (37%). Physical causes were more likely to be endorsed for OCD, depression and schizophrenia. Psychosocial causes were less often endorsed for OCD. Personality causes were less endorsed for dementia but more associated with depression.

CONCLUSIONS

The factor structure of the causal beliefs scale is not entirely the same as that found in previous research. Further research on the causal beliefs endorsed by Southeast Asian communities should be conducted to investigate other potential causes such as biogenetic factors and spiritual/supernatural causes. Mental health awareness campaigns should address causes of mental illness as a topic. Lay beliefs in the different causes must be acknowledged and it would be beneficial for the public to be informed of the causes of some of the most common mental illnesses in order to encourage help-seeking and treatment compliance.

Influencing factors of attitudes toward seeking professional help for mental illness among Korean adults

OBJECTIVES

Identifying predictors of psychological help-seeking attitudes is essential to improve access to needed mental health services. We investigated factors - particularly Big Five personality traits - that affect attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help for mental illness among Korean adults.

METHODS

A total of 654 participants aged 15-54 years were recruited through an online panel survey. Help-seeking attitudes for mental illness were measured by the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (ATSPPH), and personality traits were measured by the Big Five Personality Inventory-10.

RESULTS

Multivariate analyses showed that female gender, history of psychiatric diagnosis, agreeableness and openness to experience were significantly associated with positive attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help for mental illness.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that specific personality traits should be considered when developing strategies to promote positive attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Further research using a representative community sample is needed to generalize our findings.

The interplay of etiological knowledge and mental illness stigma on healthcare utilisation in the community: A structural equation model

BACKGROUND

The stigma of mental illness, especially personal attitudes towards psychiatric patients and mental health help-seeking, is an important barrier in healthcare utilisation. These attitudes are not independent of each other and are also influenced by other factors, such as mental health literacy, especially the public's causal explanations for mental problems. We aimed to disentangle the interrelations between the different aspects of stigma and causal explanations with respect to their association with healthcare utilisation.

METHODS

Stigma and causal explanations were assessed cross-sectional using established German questionnaires with two unlabelled vignettes (schizophrenia and depression) in a random-selection representative community sample (N = 1375, aged 16-40 years). They were interviewed through a prior telephone survey for current mental disorder (n = 192) and healthcare utilisation (n = 377). Structural equation modelling was conducted with healthcare utilisation as outcome and stigma and causal explanations as latent variables. The final model was additionally analysed based on the vignettes.

RESULTS

We identified two pathways. One positive associated with healthcare utilisation, with high psychosocial stress and low constitution/personality related causal explanations, via positive perception of help-seeking and more help-seeking intentions. One negative associated with healthcare utilisation, with high biogenetic and constitution/personality, and low psychosocial stress related explanations, via negative perception of psychiatric patients and a strong wish for social distance. Sensitivity analysis generally supported both pathways with some differences in the role of biogenetic causal explanation.

CONCLUSION

Our results indicate that campaigns promoting early healthcare utilisation should focus on different strategies to promote facilitation and reduce barriers to mental healthcare.

Positive psychological interventions for people with epilepsy: An assessment on factors related to intervention participation

BACKGROUND

Positive psychological interventions (PPI) are increasingly employed as a coping strategy with physical and mental conditions, including neurological diseases. Its effectiveness on improving wellbeing in people with epilepsy (PWE) has been shown in a few studies. This study aimed to explore factors related to participants' willingness to engage in psychological interventions from the perspective of patients with epilepsy.

METHODS

Participants answered a needs assessment questionnaire eliciting information about their illness perception (Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (Brief-IPQ)), emotions (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)), willingness to participate in psychological interventions, preferences in types of PPI and intervention designs, as well as barriers in seeking mental health services.

RESULTS

A total of 154 patients with epilepsy participated, with a mean age of 37.3years (range 16-86years). Most patients had focal epilepsy (68.2%), and drug-resistant (59.1%). Majority (71.4%) of them indicated a strong willingness to participate in PPI. Out of nine types of PPI, character strengths, mindfulness-based and expressive-based interventions were highly preferred. Those with negative illness perception (p=0.001), anxiety (p=0.004), and being unemployed (p=0.048) were more willing to participate in PPI. Most participants preferred group rather than individual session, and a shorter duration (30min) was favored by most.

CONCLUSION

This study captured the self-report willingness to participate in psychological interventions. Findings suggested that psychological interventions delivered in short-group session were highly preferred. Future study is required to determine the feasibility of such design for patients with epilepsy.

Mental Help Seeking Attitudes Scale (MHSAS): Development, reliability, validity, and comparison with the ATSPPH-SF and IASMHS-PO

Attitudes is a key help-seeking construct that influences treatment seeking behavior via intention to seek help, per the theory of planned behavior (TPB). This article presents the development and psychometric evaluation of the Mental Help Seeking Attitudes Scale (MHSAS), designed to measure respondents' overall evaluation (unfavorable vs. favorable) of their seeking help from a mental health professional. In Study 1 (N = 857 United States adults), exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and item response theory (IRT) analysis were used to identify an optimal set of 9 items that demonstrated initial evidence of internal consistency, unidimensionality, and strong measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) across gender, past help-seeking experience, and psychological distress. Initial convergent evidence of validity was demonstrated via theoretically anticipated relationships between the MHSAS and key variables in the help-seeking nomological network (e.g., subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, intention, public stigma, self-stigma, anticipated risks and benefits, gender, previous help seeking). Initial incremental evidence of validity was demonstrated when the MHSAS demonstrated the ability to account for unique variance in help-seeking intention, beyond that accounted for by the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help-Short Form scale (ATSPPH-SF) and the Psychological Openness subscale of the Inventory of Attitudes Toward Seeking Mental Health Services (IASMHS-PO). Study 2 (N = 207 United States adults at Times 1 and 2) provided initial evidence of test-retest reliability over a 3-week period. The MHSAS offers mental health professionals a new tool for measuring attitudes that may avoid limitations of current help seeking-attitudes measures (e.g., construct-irrelevant variance). (PsycINFO Database Record

A review of mental health literacy in Singapore

Mental health is a major concern throughout the world. The lifetime prevalence of mental health problems in Singapore for those aged 18 years and above was reported to be 12%. However, studies on mental health literacy are relatively scarce in Singapore. The aim of this paper is to provide a topical review of local studies on mental health literacy, people's knowledge of, and attitude toward mental illness, and beliefs about mental health treatment. A narrative review of studies on mental health literacy in Singapore covering the period from 1995 to 2016 highlights the findings from various local studies about attitudes toward mental illness, belief about the causes, and help-seeking behavior. Findings revealed that many lay people are unable to recognize different types of mental disorders. Negative attitudes toward mental illness that hinders individuals from seeking professional treatment, and help-seeking, are the common themes that emerge from the findings. Health professionals have differing views about the causes and treatment of mental disorders. Findings also revealed that treatment seeking and attitudes and beliefs toward mental illness are related to mental health literacy. Implications for promoting mental health literacy are provided.

Attitudes within the general population towards seeking professional help in cases of mental distress

BACKGROUND

Although effective treatment is available for a variety of mental disorders, the treatment and help-seeking gap remains high. One of the main obstacles to help-seeking behaviour is prevailing stigmatizing attitudes.

AIM

To examine attitudes within the general population towards seeking professional help in times of mental distress.

METHODS

A representative general population survey ( N = 594) was conducted in Slovenia by means of an Internet-based questionnaire, covering data on demographic variables and attitudes towards help-seeking behaviour.

RESULTS

More stigmatizing attitudes towards help-seeking behaviour were found in men, single persons, those of a younger age and lower educational achievement and in respondents coming from regions with a high suicide rate. Furthermore, 52.50% of the total sample have had an experience with psychological problems, yet only 41.50% of those have sought professional help. Experience with help-seeking behaviour in the past was associated with less stigmatizing attitudes.

CONCLUSION

Knowledge and understanding of mental health problems are necessary prerequisites to seeking help, but not the only ones. To improve help-seeking behaviour, it is also important to combat stigmatizing attitudes. Additionally, destigmatizing campaigns should also focus on social norms.

Attitudes to Mental Illness and Its Demographic Correlates among General Population in Singapore

Background

Public attitudes to mental illness could influence how the public interact with, provide opportunities for, and help people with mental illness.

Aims

This study aims to explore the underlying factors of the Attitudes to Mental Illness questionnaire among the general population in Singapore and the socio-demographic correlates of each factor.

Methods

From March 2014 to April 2015, a nation-wide cross-sectional survey on mental health literacy with 3,006 participants was conducted in Singapore.

Results

Factor analysis revealed a 4-factor structure for the Attitudes to Mental Illness questionnaire among the Singapore general population, namely social distancing, tolerance/support for community care, social restrictiveness, and prejudice and misconception. Older age, male gender, lower education and socio-economic status were associated with more negative attitudes towards the mentally ill. Chinese showed more negative attitudes than Indians and Malays (except for prejudice and misconception).

Conclusions

There is a need for culture-specific interventions, and the associated factors identified in this study should be considered for future attitude campaigns.