U.K. Army Medical and Unit Welfare Officers' Perceptions of Mental Health Stigma and Its Impact on Army Personnel's Mental Health Help Seeking

Abstract

Mental health stigma and barriers to care (BTC) have been reported as impeding help-seeking among UK military personnel. A deeper understanding of the impact of stigma and BTC on help-seeking may be accessible via the perceptions of UK military health service providers. Secondary thematic analysis of interviews with 21 UK Army Welfare Officers and Medical Officers was conducted to investigate their perceptions of how mental health stigma, BTC, and stigma alleviation efforts impact UK Army soldiers' help-seeking. Three master themes were identified; Military culture; Barriers to care: and, Stigma alleviation success. The Welfare and Medical Officers perceived that military culture and its promotion of stoicism lead to certain beliefs surrounding legitimacy of mental health problems, confidentiality, and concerns for career impacts that affect UK Army personnel seeking help. They also reported perceiving stigma to have decreased and attributed this to some of the stigma reduction interventions currently in place. Recommendations for education based stigma reduction methods are made, including reframing beliefs surrounding the need to "soldier on" and that help-seeking is a weakness, providing consistent advice about confidentiality of health service attendance, and education for leaders to promote symptom recognition and treatment seeking.

Protecting the psychological wellbeing of staff exposed to disaster or emergency at work: a qualitative study

“…Many participants were concerned they would be seen as weak, reporting feelings of shame and embarrassment about admitting to psychological problems, and reporting concerns about impact on their career due to lack of understanding by managers or colleagues. Similar feelings of shame about suffering from psychological problems and concerns about impact on career have been noted in doctors [36] and the military [37, 38]. As a result of these barriers, participants often waited until problems were severe before seeking help.…”

Exploring Barriers to Mental Health Treatment in the Female Veteran Population: A Qualitative Study

“…Unfortunately, such beliefs are also often internalized by female veterans and results in their believing that their difficulties are not severe enough or important to warrant support (Mattocks et al, 2012;O'Brien & Sher, 2013). It is plausible that this internalized disbelief may also relate to concerns surrounding legitimacy of problems and being labelled as a malinger by professionals (Britt et al, 2011;Keeling et al, 2017).…”

Symptom Severity, Self-efficacy and Treatment-Seeking for Mental Health Among US Iraq/Afghanistan Military Veterans

“…One of the most frequently reported barriers to care found in existing research with veterans (Adler et al 2015;Keeling et al 2017;Momen et al 2012;Sayer et al 2009;Stecker et al 2007), and in some civilian studies (Mojtabai et al 2011), is having a preference for managing their problems on their own. Arguably, self-management requires high self-efficacy and confidence in one's ability to manage the problem independently.…”