Perceived Causes of Mental Health Problems and Help-Seeking Behavior among University Students in Ethiopia

Mental health has become a thoroughly studied concept in developed countries. Accordingly, a significant amount of research has focused on the intentions of college students and adolescents to seek help for mental health problems. This study aims at assessing help-seeking behavior for common mental disorders among students from Narayana group of institutions. Multi stage sampling technique was employed. Help sources were assessed using the Actual Help Seeking Questionnaire and mental health status was assessed using the 10-item Kessler psychological distress scale. A total of 760 students were involved in the study. Instruments were self-administered; Multi regression analysis was used. From the respondents, 58.4% students were found to have current mental health problems and 7.9% of the students reported ideas of harming themselves. 78.4% students had sought help for their problems. 83.8% sought help from one or more of the informal help sources. Parents, friends and religious leaders were the source of help. This may be due to lack of information about availability of mental health services.

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Attitude and help-seeking behavior of the community towards mental health problems

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0242160 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (11) ◽

pp. e0242160

Author(s):

Yonas Tesfaye ◽

Liyew Agenagnew ◽

Gudina Terefe Tucho ◽

Susan Anand ◽

Zewdie Birhanu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Help Seeking ◽

Mental Health Problems ◽

Health Problems ◽

Help Seeking Behavior ◽

Community Based ◽

Community Attitude ◽

Seeking Behavior ◽

Effective Community ◽

Unfavorable Attitude

Background Community attitude towards mental health problems and help-seeking behavior plays a major role in designing effective community based mental health interventions. This study aimed to assess the attitude, help-seeking behavior, and associated factors of the Jimma zone community towards mental health and mental health problems. Methods A community-based cross-sectional study design was employed. A respondent from each of the 423 systematically selected households was interviewed using a pretested, structured, and interviewer-administered questionnaire. Accordingly, a community’s attitude towards mental health problems was measured by the adapted version of the “Community Attitude towards Mentally Ill questionnaire (CAMI)” and help-seeking behavior was measured by a general help-seeking questionnaire. Data were entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 23.0 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was done to determine the independent predictors of the outcome variable. Results Among the total 420 study participants (197,46.9%) of them had an overall unfavorable attitude towards mental illness. The majority (153,36.4%) of the study participants agreed on avoidance of anyone who has mental health problems and (150,35.7%) participants described marrying a person with a mental health problem or recovered from the problem is foolishness. Moreover, regression analysis showed family monthly income (AOR = 0.24, 95%CI:0.06–0.91) and occupational status (AOR = 0.57, 95%CI:0.34–0.96) were found to be the predictors of community attitude towards mental health problems. The study finding also revealed a significant number of the respondents preferred non- medical treatment approaches. Conclusion Almost half of the respondents had an unfavorable attitude towards mental health problems and the traditional and religious help-seeking intention was high. This suggests the need for designing effective community based mental health interventions to improve the general public attitude and help-seeking behavior towards mental health problems.

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Coping Strategies, Personality Type, and Help-seeking behavior for Mental Health Problems

Journal of Health and Behavioral Science ◽

10.35508/jhbs.v1i2.2087 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Marleny Purnamasary Panis ◽

Yeni Damayanti ◽

Marselino K. P. Abdi Keraf

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Coping Strategies ◽

Help Seeking ◽

Mental Health Problems ◽

Type A ◽

Health Problems ◽

Help Seeking Behavior ◽

Seeking Behavior ◽

Seeking Help ◽

Type A Personality

Individual dispositions and personal factors play a role in determining the strategy to cope with mental health problems. Individuals with type A personality often show greater effort to improve their condition when experiencing stress. The study used 75 participants all gained through convenience sample ages 18-35 years old most of whom were university students in Kupang. The study used the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ), Ways of Coping, and stress-prone type A personality test to investigate different coping strategies of individuals with type A personality when seeking help for mental health problems. Data analysis using Pearson's product-moment correlation shows significant findings to support hypotheses that coping strategies are related to certain help-seeking behavior in individuals with type A personality (p=<0.05; 2-tailed). The awareness of important roles of personality tendencies when seeking help for mental health problems will impact on matters related to stress-reduction efforts to achieve mental health and well-being.

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Help-seeking behavior of patients with mental health problems visiting a tertiary care center in North India

Indian Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.4103/0019-5545.86814 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 53 (3) ◽

pp. 234 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

RakeshK Chadda ◽

Nitin Mishra ◽

SajanjivSingh Nagpal ◽

Mamta Sood

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Help Seeking ◽

Mental Health Problems ◽

Care Center ◽

Tertiary Care ◽

Health Problems ◽

North India ◽

Tertiary Care Center ◽

Help Seeking Behavior ◽

Seeking Behavior

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The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on mental health and help-seeking behavior among Italian university students. A descriptive and cross-sectional study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.32515 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Micaela Di Consiglio ◽

Sheila Merola ◽

Tiziana Pascucci ◽

Cristiano Violani ◽

Alessandro Couyoumdjian

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

University Students ◽

Help Seeking ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Female Students ◽

Help Seeking Behavior ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Paranoid Ideation ◽

Seeking Behavior ◽

The Impact

BACKGROUND To reduce the spread of Covid-19 the Italian government imposed a rigid lockdown and, for a whole year, it kept declaring stringent rules to curb the community spread. The pandemic had a great negative impact on general population mental health, including the one of university students. OBJECTIVE The study provides an overview about symptomatology and help-seeking behavior of university students before and during the Covid-19 pandemic and it aims to evaluate the impact of the different phases of the pandemic on students' mental health. METHODS We collected data in four time points: (1) March 2019-February 2020, (2) March-May 2020, (3) October-December 2020, (4) January 2020-March 2021. A total of 454 students have been included in the study. Students answered a socio-demographic questionnaire and a standardized questionnaire to evaluate a broad range of symptoms of psychopathology. Descriptive analyses have been conducted to explore student’s symptomatology and help-seeking behavior. Considering the significant gender-difference distribution between groups, groups comparison analysis has been conducted considering male and female separately. RESULTS Considering the total sample size, results suggest that students have experienced moderate to severe levels of depressive, obsessive-compulsive and anxiety symptomatology. About 14% of the sample met criteria for at least one mental health disorders, but most of them were not receiving mental health care. Moreover, during the lockdown, compared with other phases, female students reported worse symptoms in the following dimension: obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, paranoid ideation and psychoticism. The increasing symptomatology quickly disappeared after the lifting of the quarantine. Results showed any difference in the male groups. CONCLUSIONS Our findings support the view of a negative mental health condition of university students and indicate an increase of symptomatology during the lockdown among female students. Preventive and support strategies should be improved in the university context.

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Help Seeking Behavior in a Diverse Sample of Asian American Adults

Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies ◽

10.29333/ejecs/124 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 1 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Peter Nguyen ◽

Rosalie Corona ◽

Matthew Peter DeCarlo ◽

Anna Yaros ◽

Anh Thuy Le ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Domestic Violence ◽

Asian Americans ◽

Asian American ◽

Help Seeking ◽

Mental Health Problems ◽

Help Seeking Behavior ◽

Help Seeking Behaviors ◽

Different Types ◽

Seeking Behavior

We sought to characterize the help-seeking behavior of Asian Americans living in a Southeastern community in the U.S. by examining different types of services sought, help-seeking preferences, and how demographic characteristics and mental health problems (including domestic violence) predicted these behaviors. 610 Asian Americans (mean age = 39.43 years; 59.6% female; 75% immigrants) completed an anonymous, community survey that included measures of different types of help-seeking behaviors and preferences, mental health symptoms, and exposure to domestic violence. The two most-frequently help-seeking behaviors included seeking advice from friends, family members, or relatives (66.7%), and visiting a medical doctor (46.4%). In logistic regression models, older age, sex, immigrant status and symptomatic depression predicted different types of help-seeking behaviors and preferences. Neither domestic violence experience or symptomatic anxiety significantly predicted help-seeking.

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