| Mental disorders account for nearly half of the disease burden for young-adults in the United States, and half of all chronic mental illness begins by age of 14, and three-quarters by age 24. However, few young people seek help for mental health problems. This lack of treatment seeking represents a missed opportunity for decreasing the burden of mental illnesses in this population. The purpose of this study was to 1) identify factors associated with college students' mental health status, as well as 2) factors associated with intentions to seek help for mental health problems. Positive psychology's theory of well-being and the behavioral health theory Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) were two theoretical frameworks used to help capture college students' mental health indicators, assets, and intentions to seek help for mental health problems. A cross-sectional research design was used collecting self-report online survey data from Indiana University-Bloomington college students (18-24 years old) from the Fall 2017 academic school year. Data analysis of 899 students was divided into two distinct studies, one study for each purpose and research question. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses, and multiple hierarchal regression models were used to evaluate correlations between variables and estimations of the combined effects of the variables on mental health status and intentions to seek help for mental health problems. The results of these studies indicate that 1) character strengths are not as associated with traditional conceptions of mental health as they are with more positive conceptions of happiness, and well-being, and 2) attitudes toward help-seeking for a mental health problem, from either formal or informal sources of help, have the strongest overall influence on intentions to seek help for mental health problems. The implications of these results call for college campuses to conduct screening checks on students for pre-existing mental health challenges, and to provide targeted, positive health interventions to at-risk college students. Schools and college health educators should cultivate cultures of positive attitudes toward mental illness and help-seeking behaviors on campus through focusing on positive health assets and conducting separate and/or different promotion and intervention strategies for formal help-seeking and informal help-seeking behaviors. |
