Personal, Social and Systemic Barriers as Preventive Predictors of Seeking Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Services through Corresponding Behaviors & Attitudes
Abstract
In Lebanon, few individuals who have experienced any type of mental disorder have sought mental health treatment. For those who did seek professional treatment, there was a substantial delay between the onset of the disorder and the beginning of the treatment (Karam et al, 2008). This phenomenon of not receiving effective treatment is referred to as “the treatment gap” by the World Health Organization (Dua et al, 2011). One of the most cited factors which influence people’s help-seeking process is their help-seeking attitude, operationally defined as people’s overall evaluation (unfavorable vs. favorable) of the act of seeking help from a mental health professional such as a psychologist or psychiatrist. The present study seeks to better understand the role of help-seeking attitudes in increasing help-seeking behavior through studying self and social stigma with mental health literacy. This quantitative study followed a correlational design and the survey was administered through a questionnaire to a purposive convenience sample. The study used four instruments: Hammer et al. (2018) Mental Help-Seeking Attitudes Scale, Vogel et al. (2016) Self-Stigma of Seeking Help Scale, Komiya et al (2000) Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help and O’Connor & Casey’s Mental Health Literacy Scale (MHLS). The study hypothesized that: 1) Participants who have more favorable attitudes toward help-seeking behavior will be more likely to seek mental health services; 2) Participants who have lower levels of self-stigma will be more likely to seek mental health services; 3) Participants who have lower levels of perceived public stigma will be more likely to seek mental health services; 4) Participants who have higher levels of mental health literacy will be more likely to seek mental health services. The statistical analyses showed support for the second and fourth hypotheses only. Hence, the study showed that attitudes towards help-seeking are affected by low levels of self-stigma and higher mental health literacy. Future studies can try to replicate this study and target its limitations by selecting a larger sample size, a random sample that is more representative of the Lebanese population, and a counterbalanced survey that controls for order and carryover effects.
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Citation
Gebrayel, A. (2022). Personal, Social and Systemic Barriers as Preventive Predictors of Seeking Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Services through Corresponding Behaviors & Attitudes (SBS thesis, Haigazian University)