The Impact of Noise and Message Content on Message Elaboration of Psychiatric Help-Seeking Information – A Pilot Study

Abstract

The decision to access healthcare resources and psychiatric treatment may be impacted by information provided in the external environment. For messages about depression, how and where messages are delivered may be critical to whether an individual seeks help. In this study, participants were placed in a simulated environment and asked to provide ratings of state anxiety, message elaboration, psychiatric help-seeking intentions, mental health anxiety, trait anxiety, and attitudes towards psychiatric help-seeking after 30 minutes. Overall, the study revealed that (1) the subjects in a high noise condition reported a higher level of state anxiety than subjects in a low noise condition, and (2) the effect of state anxiety on message elaboration depends on anxiety-relatedness. The study improves our understanding of the relationships between state anxiety, mental health anxiety, and trait anxiety. The results also offer implications for mental health communication as a critical path to depression treatment.