Self-Stigma of Seeking Help

Abstract

An expansive body of research has investigated the adverse consequences of self-stigma of seeking psychological help on help-seeking tendencies. Therefore, this chapter provides a meta-analysis of the extant literature regarding the empirical relationship between self-stigma and help-seeking attitudes and intentions. An exhaustive review of the research literature was performed on all articles published in English that assessed a statistical relationship between self-stigma and at least one other help-seeking variable such as help-seeking attitudes, intentions, willingness, or future help-seeking behaviors. We extracted data from 145 articles and included them in the meta-analyses, of which, 120 were utilized to examine the relationship between self-stigma and help-seeking attitudes, 74 were utilized to examine the relationship between self-stigma and help-seeking intentions, 3 were utilized to examine the relationship between self-stigma and future help-seeking behaviors, and 4 were utilized to examine the relationship between self-stigma and decisions to seek online help-seeking information. The meta-analyses uncovered a strong negative relationship between help-seeking self-stigma and help-seeking attitudes, moderate negative relationships between self-stigma and help-seeking intentions as well as between self-stigma and actual future help-seeking behaviors, and a small effect size for the negative relationship between self-stigma and decisions to seek online help-seeking information.