Pilot trial of gender-based motivational interviewing for increasing mental health service use in college men.

Men are considerably less likely to seek professional and nonprofessional help for mental disorders. Prior findings indicate that adherence to masculine norms contributes to stigma about internalizing disorders and help seeking. There are currently no empirically supported interventions for increasing help seeking in men with internalizing symptoms. To address this need, we conducted a pilot study of gender-based motivational interviewing (GBMI) for men with internalizing symptoms. GBMI is a single session of assessment and feedback integrating gender-based and motivational interviewing principles (Addis, 2012). College men (N = 35) with significant internalizing symptoms and no recent help seeking were randomized to either GBMI or a no-treatment control and were followed for 2 months. GBMI had a significant effect on seeking help from parents and a trend for seeking professional help, but did not have a significant effect on seeking help from friends or partners. The size of the effect of GBMI on professional and nonprofessional help seeking ranged from small to medium. GBMI shows promise for improving men's help-seeking behaviors and warrants further development and investigation.