A gender perspective about young people’s seeking help

Bosco, Nicolina; Giaccherini, Susanna; Meringolo, Patrizia

doi:10.1080/10852352.2019.1624353

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Another interesting gender difference regarded stigma: male students showed higher levels of both self-stigma and perceived stigma around seeking professional help. This difference confirms previous research [ 25 , 60 ] and may reflect social stereotypes whereby men are expected to be stoic, controlled and self-sufficient [ 61 ], and are therefore considered weak if they ask for help or admit they are unable to handle their problems on their own. In our sample, a significant difference between male and female students was found in all scales; however, the strength of the correlations remained substantially unchanged even after controlling for the effect of gender.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

The role of psychological distress, stigma and coping strategies on help-seeking intentions in a sample of Italian college students

et al. 2023

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Background Mental health issues are common among university students, but the latter are unlikely to seek professional help even when mental health services are available. Coping strategies, stigma and psychological distress are often considered as factors that can affect help-seeking intentions in university students. Methods This study aimed to determine the role of coping strategies, stigma and psychological distress on the intentions to seek professional help for psychological problems. All students (N = 13,886) from an Italian medium-sized university were asked to participate in a multidimensional online survey and 3754 (27.1%) agreed to participate. A Structural Equation Modelling approach was applied to explore the simultaneous direct and indirect effects of distress, stigma and coping strategies on professional help-seeking intentions. Results Results showed that students were not very likely to seek professional help and, through the Structural Equation Model, psychological distress was found to be positively correlated with coping strategies, which in turn was negatively associated with the stigma of seeking help. The latter was negatively associated with professional help-seeking intentions. These effects suggest that students with significant psychological distress use coping strategies to face the stigma of seeking help: the lower the stigma of seeking help, the higher the chance of developing intentions to seek professional help. Conclusions This study suggests the importance of implementing programs to encourage college students to seek help, including measures that foster a stigma-free environment, reduce psychological distress and promote the use of adaptive coping strategies. Interventions should be focused firstly on self-stigma and secondly on perceived stigma, taking into consideration the level of psychological distress and social stereotypes associated with mental disorders and help seeking behaviours. Programs about coping are also essential and should focus on promoting emotion-focused strategies and problem-focused strategies.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

The role of psychological distress, stigma and coping strategies on help-seeking intentions in a sample of Italian college students

et al. 2023

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“…By contrast, female participants tended to have more confidence in mental health professionals. However, the same study found that male participants, more so than female participants, find their friends more helpful under such circumstances [ 39 ]; this is a finding that is not concordant with ours. Interestingly, although female adolescents may desire stronger connection from their friendships, perhaps explaining their increased likelihood of choosing relate to others , friendships are valued as equally important by both [ 42 ].…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 81%

“…This suggests that male users may approach web-based community forums with a desire for intrapersonal advice, with female users more likely to seek interpersonal support. Although little research evidence exists to corroborate these findings, they could tentatively match patterns of help-seeking strategies described in a recent study [ 39 ], where male participants preferred to adopt self-reliance when dealing with psychological problems. By contrast, female participants tended to have more confidence in mental health professionals.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…Gender differences in help-seeking behavior are well documented, with women more likely to visit their general practitioner for any reason [ 37 ], including mental health concerns [ 38 ]. This difference unsurprisingly extends to adolescents, with the stigma and gender stereotypes surrounding masculinity and strength [ 39 , 40 ] influencing mental health help–seeking likelihood. Interestingly, although female adolescents also tend to be better at identifying psychological problems and possess greater knowledge of available help, education level is also a significant predictor of these factors [ 41 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Helpfulness of Web-Based Mental Health and Well-being Forums for Providing Peer Support for Young People: Cross-sectional Exploration

Banwell

Hanley

Garcia³

et al. 2022

JMIR Form Res

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Background Young people are increasingly seeking out web-based support for their mental health and well-being. Peer support forums are popular with this age group, with young individuals valuing the fact that the forums are available 24/7, providing a safe and anonymous space for exploration. Currently, little systematic evaluation of the helpfulness of such forums in providing support has been conducted. Objective This study examined the helpfulness of the support offered within web-based mental health and well-being peer support forums for young people. It specifically investigated the self-reported user ratings of helpfulness reported through the completion of a developing experience measure. The ratings will be used to consider further development of the measure and reflect upon the overall helpfulness of the forums as indicated by the reported scores. Methods The study used routinely collected practice-based outcome data from web-based mental health forums for young people. These forums are hosted by the UK-based web-based therapy and support service, Kooth. A cross-sectional design was used to explore—using a range of inferential statistical measures—the outcomes reported by those accessing the forums using a Peer Online Community Experience Measure (POCEM). To consider the helpfulness in general, 23,443 POCEMs completed in 2020 were used. A second data set of 17,137 completed POCEMs from the same year was used to consider whether various engagement indicators had an impact upon the helpfulness rating. Results Female users aged between 11 and 16 years predominantly completed the POCEM. This is in keeping with the majority of those using the service. In total, 74.6% (8240/11,045) of the scores on the POCEM indicated that the individuals found the posts helpful. An ANOVA indicated that male users were more likely to report obtaining intrapersonal support, whereas female users obtained interpersonal support. Furthermore, the POCEM scores reflected the internal consistency of the measure and provided an insight into the way that young people made use of the peer support resource; for instance, posts that were rated more helpful were correlated with spending longer time reading them, and the topics discussed varied throughout the day with more mental health issues being discussed later at night. Conclusions The results seem to demonstrate that, overall, the young people involved in this study found web-based peer support helpful. They indicate that peer support can provide an important strand of care within a supportive mental health ecosystem, particularly during time periods when in-person support is typically closed. However, limitations were noted, suggesting that caution is needed when interpreting the results of this study. Although such services are incredibly well used, they have received little research attention to date. As such, further investigation into what constitutes helpful and unhelpful peer support is needed.

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“…Female immigrants worldwide seem to be faced with more challenge than male immigrants with regard to their occupational and educational mobility and are reported to have a higher risk of suffering from mental health problems (Fisher and Hood, 1988; Magdol, 2002; Haynie et al, 2006). Women have been found to be more likely to seek help from the others (i.e., professionals or friends) and to be more emotionally interrelated than men when faced with difficulties in life (Ashton and Fuehrer, 1993; Jordan and Revenson, 1999; Addis and Mahalik, 2003; Bosco et al, 2019). As a result, they might be more flexible in adjusting to the changing environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Residential Mobility Decreases Neural Responses to Social Norm Violation

Luo

Kong

et al. 2019

Front. Psychol.

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Social norms are essential, but they vary across cultures and societies. With the internationalization of human society, population mobility has greatly increased, especially in developing countries, which can have an impact on people’s psychological states and behaviors and result in sociocultural change. The current research used three studies to examine the hypothesis that residential mobility plays a crucial role in the perception of social norm violations. Study 1 used an association test and found that residential mobility was correlated with the perception of both weak and strong social norm violations in females. Study 2 combined electroencephalography and found a negative differential N400 between weak social norm violations and appropriate behavior between residentially mobile and stable mindsets, suggesting that residential mobility modulates individuals’ detection of social norm-violating behavior. Study 3 revealed that residential mobility does not have a similar effect on semantic violations, which indicates that the effect of residential mobility does not occur in non-social norm violations. Our findings provide insight into how and why individuals’ detection of social norm-violating behaviors varies according to the dynamic development of society. As residential mobility continues to increase worldwide, especially in developing countries, more attention should be paid to the concomitant impact during the course of sociocultural change to build a better strategy for cultural specific social governance.

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A gender perspective about young people’s seeking help

Cited by 11 publications

References 37 publications

The role of psychological distress, stigma and coping strategies on help-seeking intentions in a sample of Italian college students

The role of psychological distress, stigma and coping strategies on help-seeking intentions in a sample of Italian college students

The Helpfulness of Web-Based Mental Health and Well-being Forums for Providing Peer Support for Young People: Cross-sectional Exploration

Residential Mobility Decreases Neural Responses to Social Norm Violation

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