Help-seeking preferences among Chinese college students exposed to a natural disaster: a person-centered approach

摘要

Background: Direct exposure to natural disasters is associated with increased mentaldisorders. Help-seeking behaviour among Chinese adults is low and the barriers and facil-itators of help-seeking among Chinese adults exposed to natural disasters is understudied.Objective: Using a person-centred approach, this study describes help-seeking preferencesand their correlates in a sample of Chinese college students after experiencing TyphoonHato, the strongest storm to affect Macao, China in the past 50 years.Method: The baseline sample was collected one month following exposure to the Typhoon(September 2017). Six months following the baseline study (April, 2018), a total of 815students (females = 71.5%) completed follow-up and were included in the data analysis.Latent Class Analysis (LCA) and Multinomial Logistic Regression were used to analyse thedata via Mplus 7.4 and Stata 15.0.Results: Three latent classes of help-seeking preferences were identified in this study,including: ‘mental health professionals and close people’ (MHPCP, 52%), non-seekers(31%), and ‘multiple sources’ (17%). The results of multinomial logistic regression showedthat region of origin (mainland versus Macao, China), self-stigma, perceived helpfulness ofprofessional mental health help, previous professional help-seeking behaviour, and per-ceived social support, were significantly associated with MHPCP help-seeking preferences.Conclusion: A large proportion of students preferred to seek support from loved ones andprofessionals. However, over 30% of the sample preferred not seeking help for mentalhealth concerns. Further research is needed to enhance mental health treatment seekingpreferences among Chinese college students.