A thematic analysis of the personal factors influencing mental health help‐seeking in farmers

Abstract

It is crucial to understand the micro-level personal factors that impact farmer mental health help-seeking, given that farmers are at increased risk of suicide yet show reduced mental health help-seeking behaviors.Methods: Ten farmers, 10 farmers' partners, and 8 general practitioners (ie, family physicians) from Australia completed qualitative semi-structured interviews. Braun and Clarke's method of thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings:The analysis resulted in 4 themes: "mental health literacy," "stigma of mental illness and help-seeking," "support, the partners' role in help-seeking," and "the intersectionality between being a farmer, age, and gender." Farmers' knowledge and understanding of mental health and treatments was varied. Stigma was reported to be reducing, but still present toward both mental illness and mental health help-seeking. Support from a partner was reported to facilitate help-seeking if delivered tactfully.Lastly, being older and male were reported to negatively impact farmer mental health help-seeking. Conclusion:The findings contribute to understanding farmer mental health helpseeking and could inform quantitative research and the development and implementation of interventions to promote mental health help-seeking in this group.

‘You don't want to be seen to be struggling’; identifying sociocultural barriers and facilitators for Irish farmers’ mental health help‐seeking

“…Similar to farmers’ resilience, their adaptive occupational identity can also harm their mental and physical health by separating them from their communities. These results point towards the breakdown of some of the traditional lines of community support that farmers rely on (Vayro et al., 2023) and further describe how farming communities in Ireland and elsewhere can be critical, competitive and judgemental (Birge & Herzon, 2019; Burns, 2021; Burton, 2012; Burton & Paragahawewa, 2011).…”

“…However, participants did identify that the stigma against help-seeking is slowly changing. These frustrations with slow progress are also observed in Australian farmers (Vayro et al, 2023); whereas awareness is increasing, much more is needed to address pervasive negative attitudes.…”

“…Although Canadian (see Hagen et al, 2022) and Australian (e.g. Vayro et al, 2020Vayro et al, , 2021Vayro et al, , 2023) farmers' help-seeking has been investigated in great detail, to our knowledge, no research to date has examined barriers and facilitators to Irish farmers' mental health help-seeking. Additionally, most qualitative work (e.g.…”

Rural health dialogue for the sustainability of help-seeking behaviors among older patients: Grounded theory approach

“…Dialogues with rural citizens regarding HSBs may demand knowledge from multiple medical elds and social sciences, such as sociology and public health [5,22]. To date, the effects of health dialogues between older rural citizens and their family physicians on the citizens' HSBs have not been investigated.…”

“…HSBs are behaviors that address people's symptoms and anxieties. When people approach symptoms and anxieties [4,5], they are in uenced by various social, demographic, and socioeconomic factors [6,7]. Effective HSBs can mitigate di culties in life and improve the overall quality of life (QOL) [8].…”