Perceived social support, suicidal ideation, stigma, and help seeking behaviors among college students.

摘要

This study investigated the relationships among social support, suicidal ideation, mental health public stigma, and self-stigma, and how these variables related to and affected help-seeking behaviors in undergraduate students. A second purpose of this study was to assess what mental health services college students were aware of, how likely they were to use these services, and how self-stigma affected if and when they would seek such services. Ninety-nine undergraduate students completed the Suicide Probability Scale, Personal Resource Questionnaire 2000, Self-Stigma of Seeking Help Scale, Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help, Resource Questionnaire, Experience with Psychological Professionals Questionnaire, and a demographic questionnaire. Results revealed that as suicide ideation increased, help-seeking behaviors decreased. Mental health public stigma and self-stigma were positively correlated, and self-stigma was negatively correlated with help-seeking behaviors. Further results indicated that males reported significantly more self-stigma than females, and individuals currently seeking mental health treatment reported less self-stigma than those individuals not seeking mental health services. Implications of findings and suggestions for decreasing barriers to mental health services are discussed.