Attitudes towards mental health and willingness to seek psychological help : a quantitative study among university students

Abstract

Psychological help seeking is often influenced by a variety of factors. The current study explored whether beliefs in mental illness impact one’s attitude towards seeking professional psychological help. Beliefs were measured using Hirai & Clum’s (2000) Belief in Mental Illness scale and attitudes were measured using the Attitudes towards Seeking Professional Psychological Help – Short form scale by Fischer and Farina (1995). Results from the Pearson’s correlation revealed a significant negative relationship between beliefs in mental illness and attitudes towards help seeking, meaning that the less stigma towards mental health, the greater the propensity towards seeking psychological help. The one-way ANOVA test and Kruskal Wallis test were conducted to compare scale scores between gender, age and faculty. Results revealed that males were more open to seeking treatment than females and consequently a larger percentage of males had sought help from a mental health service previously. Younger participants showed more favourable beliefs in mental illness however no differences in attitudes towards help seeking were noted between age groups. Participants from the Faculty for Social Wellbeing scored significantly more positively in the ATSPPH scale compared to participants from other faculties. The results of the study are discussed with reference to previous literature and recommendations are made for future research such as a wide scale study among the general population in order to investigate whether there is a change in beliefs and attitudes.