Factors affecting attitude towards seeking professional help for mental illness: a UK Arab perspective

Abstract

This study examined various factors affecting attitude towards seeking professional psychological help (ATSPPH) in Arabs living in the UK: causal beliefs, shame-focused attitudes, confidentiality concerns, ethnic identity and demographic variables. Participants completed an online questionnaire and results indicated that Arabs showed significantly less positive ATSPPH and had stronger causal beliefs in supernatural and non-Western physiology than British Caucasians. Confidentiality concerns, but not shame-focused attitudes were significant predictors of ATSPPH; confidentiality concerns were more significant for Arabs than for British Caucasians. Implications are drawn from the results.

Mental Health Beliefs Amongst Emirati Female College Students

“…Thematically, causal explanation centered abound fairly conventional ''Western'' biopsychosocial explanations (Hamid and Furnham 2013). However, early and recent life experiences and social experiences play significant role in the psychological disorders whereas, biological genetic factors were thought as the main cause of mental disorders.…”

“…Seeking help from religious healers is the most common form of traditional treatment in the Arab culture as it is less stigmatizing than seeking psychological treatment (Youssef and Deane 2006). Hamid and Furnham (2013) found Arabs to show stronger supernatural causal beliefs about mental illnesses compared to British Caucasians, who believed more in underlying biological causes of mental illnesses. Thus, individuals' coping techniques mostly revolved around prayer and strengthening of faith.…”

“…Mental illnesses remain largely stigmatized within Arab populations, who appear more inclined towards religious healers to cope with mental illness (Al-Darmaki and Sayed 2009;Al-Krenawi 2005;Bagasra and Mackinem 2014;Ciftci et al 2013;Hamid and Furnham 2013;Sayed 2003;Youssef and Deane 2006). The Islamic faith denotes that health and sickness comes from Allah (God), and the state of a person (whether sick or healthy) is reflective of an individual's relationship with Allah.…”

The Singaporean public beliefs about the causes of mental illness: results from a multi-ethnic population-based study

“…The different measures used, sample size and non-representative sampling methods make it hard to generalise the findings to other communities or track changes in belief over time. Furthermore, most previous studies have focused on causal beliefs of schizophrenia and depression (Nakane et al 2005;Loo & Furnham, 2012 or only addressed mental illness in general without specifying particular disorders (Sheikh & Furnham, 2000;Hamid & Furnham, 2013).…”

“…Razali et al (1996) recruited a small sample of 153 psychiatric patients and used a 20-item checklist to measure beliefs. Hamid & Furnham (2013) recruited students via emails and special interest groups through advertisements on social networking sites. They used the Mental Distress Explanatory Model Questionnaire (MDEMQ, Eisenbruch, 1990) to measure causal beliefs and attitudes towards both seeking psychological help and those with mental illness.…”