Barriers to mental health help-seeking among young-adult medical students in Egypt: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Purpose High levels of mental distress were reported among medical students, however, only a small portion decides to seek help. This study aims at identifying the most diagnosed mental disorders among medical students in Egypt, recognizing their family attitudes and the major barriers that deter them from help seeking. Method This is a cross-sectional study conducted on Egyptian medical students from different universities. Each student filled out a questionnaire assessing the sociodemographic factors, the presence of previously diagnosed mental disorder, the barriers to mental health help-seeking using 27 items from the 30-item Barriers to Access to Care Evaluation (BACE), and the family's attitude towards mental health. Result 1037 students filled completed the questionnaire, and 23.4% mentioned being previously diagnosed with mental illness. The top three major barriers were attitudinal, reflecting a tendency for self-reliance, and a low preferability for emotional expressiveness. The fourth major barrier was stigma-related, representing a fear of what the family might say or think. Most of the students’ families had a positive attitude and support for mental health. The parent’s mental health attitude was positively associated with higher levels of education. Conclusion Multiple attitudinal barriers represented hindrance to mental health help-seeking and reflected self-reliance tendency among the study participants. This self-reliance proclivity needs to be investigated since it is a common theme noticed among the young generations, however, it could be used for designing self-help programs that strengthen mental health integrity and literacy.