Adolescents’ Views on Seeking Help for Emotional and Behavioral Problems: A Focus Group Study

Abstract

This study aimed to get insight into adolescents’ views on help-seeking for emotional and behavioral problems. Fourteen focus groups were conducted. Two vignettes, depicting one healthy adolescent with few issues and one adolescent with severe psychosocial problems, were used to structure the focus groups. The focus groups were framed within a youth help-seeking model. Adolescents (mean age of 15.0 years) generally reported seeking help from friends or the internet for mild issues and from a person they trust like a parent or school mentor, for more severe problems. Adolescents correctly recognized the issues in vignette one as surmountable and the problems in vignette two as severe. A bond of trust with a help source was regarded as the main facilitator for the decision to seek help. Adolescents reported a preference for help sources who clearly displayed their expertise for the issue at hand and for informal help-sources, particularly friends.

The Developmental Process of Peer Support Networks: The Role of Friendship

“…The present study partially confirmed the assumption that friendships improve the formation of peer support ties. The result that dyadic friendship relationships positively affected the formation of dyadic support relationships is consistent with previous theories of the relationship between friendship and support seeking ( Barbee and Cunningham, 1995 ; van den Toren et al, 2020 ). Furthermore, a kind of triadic friendship improved peer support relationships.…”

“…Friendships can also help adolescents receive support in another way. Adolescents seek and receive support from friends when they are in trouble ( D’Avanzo et al, 2012 ; Heerde and Hemphill, 2018 ; Schacter and Margolin, 2019 ; van den Toren et al, 2020 ), such as academic and emotional problems ( Tishby et al, 2001 ; Amemiya and Wang, 2017 ; Zander et al, 2019 ). This tendency can be explained in several ways.…”

“…Meanwhile, people like to choose others who have some attractive features as friends, such as athletic talent, good social skills, and outstanding academic performance ( Kubitschek and Hallinan, 1998 ; Taylor et al, 2006 ). Some of these features are also important considerations when students choose classmates from whom they seek support ( Zander et al, 2019 ; van den Toren et al, 2020 ). As a result, students are more likely to seek support from recipients of friendships.…”

Associations of socio-demographic characteristics, well-being, school absenteeism, and substance use with recreational nitrous oxide use among adolescents: A cross-sectional study

“…A project was set up to evaluate the extension of preventive Youth Health Care for adolescents, e.g. by conducting a questionnaire and by organizing focus group interviews among adolescents [ 22 ]. For the questionnaire, a power calculation was performed to calculate the target sample size to obtain a statistically significant small to medium effect size of the extension of preventive Youth Health Care for adolescents when compared to a control condition.…”

Using Mobile Phones in Health Behaviour Change - an Exploration of Perceptions among Adolescents in Sweden

“…However, aspects such as staff turnover, funding, time and material resources challenge schools' capacity to sustain health interventions (Herlitz et al, 2020). In addition, adolescents may perceive barriers to seeking help for behavioural problems from professionals in school and may prefer seeking help from friends and from digital sources (Van Den Toren et al, 2020).…”