Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Willingness to Ask Tor Help Among Persons with Severe Mental illness: Call for Research

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Community Mental Health Journal Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There are times when people with severe mental illness (SMI) must be willing to ask for help (e.g., with managing symptoms). But what makes one person ask for help and another decide to go it alone? We used logistic regression to assess willingness to request assistance among 150 people with SMI. Hispanics were more likely (OR 8.51, CI 2.05–35.36, p < .01) than Caucasians to be willing to ask for help, and people with the highest incomes (relative to the lowest) were more likely (OR 7.23, CI 1.76–29.97, p > .01). Individuals with the most social support (relative to the least) were more likely (OR 12.36, CI 3.01–50.85, p < .001) to be willing to request assistance, and people who were willing to ask for help were more likely (OR 2.07, CI 1.01–4.26, p < .05) than less willing individuals to report being happy. More research is needed in order to better understand predisposition to seek aid, and interventions are needed that promote it.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Andersen, R. M. (1995). Revisiting the behavioral model and access to medical care: Does it matter. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 36, 1–10.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bebbington, P., Brugha, T. S., Meltzer, H., Farrell, M., Ceresa, C., Jenkins, R., & Lewis, G. (2000). Psychiatric disorder and dysfunction in the UK National Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 35, 191–197.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Biddle, L., Donovan, J., Sharp, D., & Gunnell, D. (2007). Explaining non-help-seeking amongst young adults with mental distress: A dynamic interpretive model of illness behaviour. Sociology of Health and Illness, 29, 983–1002.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bjorgvinsson, T., Kertz, S. J., Bigda-Peyton, J. S., McCoy, K. L., & Aderka, I. M. (2013). Psychometric properties of the CES-D-10 in a psychiatric sample. Assessment, 20, 429–436.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, J. E., Otilingam, P. G., & Deforge, B. R. (2014). Brief version of the internalized stigma of mental illness (ISMI) scale: Psychometric properties and relationship to depression, self esteem, recovery orientation, empowerment, and perceived devaluation and discrimination. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 37, 17–23.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Clement, S., Schauman, O., Graham, T., Maggioni, F., et al. (2015). What is the impact of mental health-related stigma on help-seeking? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies. Psychological Medicine, 45, 11–27.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cornelius, B., Groothoff, J. W., van der Klink, J. J. L., & Brouwer, S. (2013). The performance of the K10, K6 and GHQ-12 to screen for present state DSM-IV disorders among disability claimants. BMC Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-128.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Dhalla, S., & Kopec, J. A. (2007). The CAGE questionnaire for alcohol misuse: A review of reliability and validity studies. Clinical and Investigative Medicine, 30, 33–41.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Eisenberg, D., Hunt, J., & Speer, N. (2012). Help seeking for mental health on college campuses: Review of evidence and next steps for research and practice. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 20, 222–232.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Eisenberg, D., Hunt, J., Speer, N., & Zivin, K. (2011). Mental health service utilization among college students in the United States. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 199, 301–308.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ewing, J. A. (1984). Detecting alcoholism. The CAGE questionnaire. Journal of the American Medical Association, 252, 1905–1907.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Giffort, D., Schmook, A., Woody, C., Vollendorf, C., & Gervain, M. (1995). Recovery assessment scale. Chicago, IL: Illinois Department of Mental Health.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. (2016). Collaborative psychiatric epidemiology survey. Retrieved from http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/20240.

  • Kessler, R. C., Barker, P. R., Colpe, L. J., et al. (2003). Screening for serious mental illness in the general population. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 184–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mojtabai, R., Olfson, M., Sampson, N. A., Jin, R., et al. (2011). Barriers to mental health treatment: Results from the National comorbidity survey replication. Psychological Medicine, 41, 1751–1761.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Moser, A., Stuck, A. E., Silliman, R. A., Ganz, P. A., & Clough-Gorra, K. M. (2012). The eight-item modified medical outcomes study social support survey: Psychometric evaluation showed excellent performance. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 65, 1107–1116.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Rickwood, D., & Thomas, K. (2012). Conceptual measurement framework for help-seeking for mental health problems. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 5, 173–183.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ritsher J. B., Otilingam, P. O., & Grajales, M. (2003) Internalized stigma of mental illness: Psychometric properties of a new measure. Psychiatry Research, 121, 31–49.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Salzer, M. S., & Brusilovskiy, E. (2014). Advancing recovery science: Reliability and validity properties of the recovery assessment scale. Psychiatric Services, 65, 442–453.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Savage, H., Murray, J., Hatch, S. L., Hotopf, M., Evans-Lacko, S., & Brown, J. S. L. (2016). Exploring professional help-seeking for mental disorders. Qualitative Health Research, 26, 1662–1673.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schomerus, G., & Angermeyer, M. C. (2008). Stigma and its impact on help-seeking for mental disorders: What do we know? Epidemiologia E Psichiatria Sociale, 17, 31–37.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sherbourne, C., & Stewart, A. (1991). The MOS social support survey. Social Science & Medicine, 32, 705–714.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sosulski, M. R., & Woodward, A. T. (2013). African American women living with mental disorders: Factors associated with help seeking from professional services and informal supports. Social Work in Public Health, 28, 660–671.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Villatoro, A. P., Morales, E. S., & Mays, V. M. (2014). Family culture in mental health help-seeking and utilization in a nationally representative sample of Latinos in the United States: The NLAAS. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 84, 353–363.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Yeung, E. Y., Irvine, F., Ng, S., & Tsang, S. K. M. (2013). Role of social networks in the help-seeking experiences among Chinese suffering from severe mental illness in England: A qualitative study. British Journal of Social Work, 43, 486–503.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The funding was supported by Fountain House.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan D. Prince.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Jonathan D. Prince is currently receiving a grant from Fountain House, a mental health service agency in New York City. For the remaining authors none were declared.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Prince, J.D., Mora, O. & Schonebaum, A.D. Willingness to Ask Tor Help Among Persons with Severe Mental illness: Call for Research. Community Ment Health J 55, 249–256 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-018-0287-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-018-0287-z

Keywords

Navigation