Mental Health Literacy And Perceived Risk In Professional Psychological Help-seeking

In recent years, the prevalence and negative consequences of mental illness havebecome global issues of common concern. Although it is widely acknowledged thatprofessional mental health services, such as psychological counseling andpsychotherapy, can effectively help people to deal with mental illness, theunderutilization of mental health services is still a severe problem worldwide,especially in China. To facilitate the utilization of mental health services, extensivestudies have been conducted to investigate what factors might encourage or inhibitindividuals from seeking professional psychological help, and a complex array ofdemographic, psychological and social factors have been identified; however, littleresearch analyzed this issue in terms of consumption behaviors, despite the fact thatseeking and receiving mental health services is a sort of medical consumptionbehavior per se. To fill this lack of knowledge, by taking mental health services asproducts, the present study examined two factors associated with consumer’sdecisions on approaching the service, and these factors are mental health literacy andperceived risk of mental health services.To be more specific, the present study aims to resolve several issues around twoaspects. First, regarding mental health literacy, which means knowledge and beliefsabout mental illness and treatment, three types of beliefs are discussed in this research,including beliefs about the etiology of mental illness, beliefs about the effectivenessof mental health services and the stigma of receiving services. Under the frameworkof the intersubjective consensus approach, these beliefs are discussed in both personaland intersubjective level, or in other words, both individuals’ own beliefs and theirperceived shared beliefs in their society have been considered. Three main issuesneed to be resolved are (a) the contents of mental health literacy;(b) the relationshipsbetween personal and intersubjective mental health literacy; and (c) the extent towhich these beliefs are associated with consumers’ decisions on professionalpsychological help-seeking. Second, regarding perceived risk, there are three mainissues: one, the structure of consumers’ perceived risk of receiving mental health services; two, the factors influencing perceived risk; and, three, the effect ofperceived risk on consumers’ decisions on professional psychological help-seeking.To investigate the above issues,555undergraduates from three universities inTianjin and557community residents from13different regions of China wererecruited to complete a battery of questionnaires. Various statistic methods were usedto analyze the data, such as Descriptive Statistic, T Test, ANOVA, Repeated MeasuresANOVA, Multiple Regression, Logistic Regression, Exploratory Factor Analysis(Principal Components Analysis) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The results wereas follows:(a) Regarding the characteristics of the contents of the public’s mental healthliteracy, first, in both personal and intersubjective level, people generally believe thatmental illness is caused by external environmental factors (e.g., problems duringupbringing or the pressure of life) rather than internal biological or dispositionalfactors, and that mental health services are effective, and that the stigma associatedwith professional psychological help-seeking is low; Second, in both personal andintersubjective level, compared with community residents, undergraduates seem to bemore inclined to hold a belief that the cause of mental illness is external but notinternal, and that mental health services are effective and the stigma is low.(b) Regarding the relationships between personal and intersubjective literacy,there are close correlations between them as well as significant discrepancies betweenthem, indicating that there is a certain level of correspondence between personal andintersubjective literacy, but the correspondence is imperfect.(c) Regarding the associations between mental health literacy and professionalpsychological help-seeking behaviors, all three types of personal literacy in questionare significantly associated with help-seeking intentions and behaviors. Specifically,the belief about internal etiology of mental illness and about the effectiveness ofmental health services can increase individuals’ intentions to receive mental healthservices and facilitate the corresponding behaviors, but the stigma belief can attenuatethe help-seeking intentions and impede help-seeking behaviors. The intersubjectiveliteracy can play a role in influencing individuals’ help-seeking intentions beyond thepersonal literacy, reflecting the unique role of social culture; however, there is no significant unique effect of intersubjective literacy on help-seeking behaviors.(d) Regarding the structure of perceived risk of receiving mental health services,there are four dimensions of perceived risk: psychological risk, service quality risk,functional value risk, and social risk.(e) Regarding factors influencing the perceived risk of receiving mental healthservices, the results showed that: compared with community residents,undergraduates perceive more service quality risk and functional value risk but lesspsychological risk; women perceived more service quality risk, functional value riskand social risk than men; familiarity with mental health knowledge can reduceperceived psychological risk; both personal and intersubjective mental health literacyare likely to influence the level of perceived risk; the professional psychologicalhelp-seeking experiences of acquaintances can help to reduce individuals’ perceivedpsychological risk and social risk.(f) Regarding the influence of perceived risk on professional psychologicalhelp-seeking behaviors, in different phases of decision making, different dimensionsof perceived risk can play different roles. Specifically, in intention phase,psychological risk, service quality risk and functional value risk may attenuate thehelp-seeking intentions; in behavior phase, social risk may prevent individuals fromseeking professional psychological help.Based on the above results of the present research and achievements of domesticand overseas relevant practices, the author proposed some suggestions to facilitateprofessional psychological help-seeking behaviors. For instance, reinforce theeducation of mental health knowledge to change the mental health literacy of thepublic, in both personal and intersubjective level; attenuate the stigma associated withprofessional psychological help-seeking behaviors to reduce the perceivedpsychological risk and social risk; improve the systems of mental health services toreduce the perceived service quality risk and functional value risk.