Factors Influencing Psychological Help Seeking in Adults: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of the current research is to identify which factors, and in what direction these factors influence adults' decisions to seek psychological help for their personal problems. The research was designed as a phenomenology model; the data was gathered through the semi-structured interview technique, which is mostly used in qualitative research designs. In selecting the participants, the criterion sampling technique - one of the purposeful sampling techniques - was used. Two criteria were decided upon in selecting participants; being, never having pursued psychological help previously or having terminated a previous process early. There were 6 male and 4 female participants in the study. The interviews were conducted face to face and recorded by a voice-recorder. The interviews were then examined using descriptive analysis techniques. Two main themes emerged as a result of the analysis; namely, factors that inhibited and factors that facilitated psychological help seeking in adults. Social stigma, unwillingness to share problems with an unfamiliar person, the belief that private problems should be kept in the family, one's belief that he/she can solve his/her problems, and not knowing enough about the psychological help process were determined as the sub-themes for inhibiting factors. On the other hand, the availability of psychological services, the belief in the benefits of psychological services, trusting in the mental health professional, and receiving help free of cost were determined as the sub-themes for the facilitating factors. The results were discussed in relation to the literature and several suggestions were made regarding how to overcome the barriers preventing individuals from seeking psychological help and how to make facilitative factors more acceptable, so as to increase people's willingness to seek help.Keywords: Psychological Help seeking * Barriers and Facilitators * Adults * Qualitative Study * Willingness to Seek HelpReceiving psychological help is a coping behavior (Mojaverian, Hashimoto, & Kim, 2013), and in the literature about dealing with problems, it is seen as a reaction to stress and a mechanism that contributes to well-being (Wilson & Deane, 2010). Receiving psychological help is important because it decreases the long-term negative effects of mental health problems (Rickwood, Deane, & Wilson, 2007). The process of receiving psychological help starts when the necessity of these services is felt, and it ends when the necessity has been met by receiving psychological help (McKean, 2005). The results of studies in the literature demonstrate that just as there are both barriers effecting one's decision to receive psychological help, so are there facilitators (Hui, Wong, & Fu, 2014; Vogel, Wester, Wei, & Boysen, 2005).In those studies citing barriers discouraging individuals from making the decision to receive psychological help (Wong, 2006), it has been found that 6% of the variance in individuals' willingness to seek help is explained by the barriers related to receiving that psychological help. This study demonstrate that the only meaningful factor explaining willingness to seek help is participants' own perception of how necessary it is for them to receive psychological help. This finding entails that the less a person feels help to be necessary, the less his desire to seek help is.In another study, the factors preventing someone from seeking psychological help were studied (Sanders, Thompson, Brazile, & Akbar, 2004). It was seen that several factors impeded one from receiving psychological help such as the fear of stigmatization, lack of knowledge about psychological help process, lack of money, not trusting the practitioner, and feeling that the practitioner will be lack of cultural knowledge and differences.In a study conducted by Setiawan (2006), the barriers to receiving psychological help from psychological services were studied, finding the most important of these barriers to be an individual's having friends or family. …