Autonomy versus support: self-reliance and help-seeking for mental health problems in young people

Abstract

Purpose: Many young people with mental ill-health do not seek support, and developmental growth in self-reliance may be a barrier to help-seeking. Increasing autonomy is a positive developmental task for youth and a key aspect of resilience. This study examined the influence of perceived social support and resilience on the previously unexamined relationship between self-reliance and intentions to seek help from informal, professional, and self-help sources for mental health problems.

Methods: An online survey was completed by a representative Australian community sample of 5,203 young people aged 12-25 years (half female), in May-June 2020.

Results: Path analysis showed the hypothesised conceptual model did not fit the data well, but a modified model was a good fit. Higher self-reliance was associated with lower intentions to seek informal and professional help, as expected, but not with greater intentions for self-help. The relationship between self-reliance and informal help-seeking intentions was fully mediated by perceived social support, whereas the relationship between self-reliance and professional help-seeking was also direct. Perceived social support fully mediated the relationship between self-reliance and resilience. Intentions to use self-help were not influenced by variables in the study, but higher self-help intentions were associated with higher professional help-seeking intentions. Associations were consistent across age and gender groups.

Conclusion: The results show the critical role of social support for combating some of the unhelpful aspects of self-reliance for mental health help-seeking in young people. Future research should explore how self-reliance can hinder or be harnessed to facilitate accessing appropriate mental health.

Keywords: Help-seeking; Mental health problems; Perceived social support; Resilience; Self-reliance; Youth.

Fig. 1

Hypothesised relationships between self-reliance, perceived social support, resilience, professional help-seeking, informal help-seeking, and self-help. Note. Dashed lines represent relationships hypothesised as mediated or partially mediated; plus sign (+) = hypothesised positive association; minus sign (− ) = hypothesised negative association; question mark (?) = exploratory investigation

Fig. 2

Final modified model demonstrating relationships between self-reliance, perceived social support, resilience, professional help-seeking, informal help-seeking, and Self-Help. Note. All paths are significant at p < 0.001. The post-hoc modified path is represented by a dashed line. All paths are invariant across age and gender group, except for the path from perceived social support to resilience (0.40), which ranged from 0.25 to 0.45 across age by gender groups