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. 2020 Jan;47(1):54-69.
doi: 10.1007/s11414-019-09662-8.

A Prospective Study on Structural and Attitudinal Barriers to Professional Help-Seeking for Currently Untreated Mental Health Problems in the Community

Samuel Tomczyk  1 , S Schmidt  2 , H Muehlan  2 , S Stolzenburg  3 , G Schomerus  4
Affiliations

A Prospective Study on Structural and Attitudinal Barriers to Professional Help-Seeking for Currently Untreated Mental Health Problems in the Community

Samuel Tomczyk et al. J Behav Health Serv Res. 2020 Jan.

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.

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