Amarasuriya Santushi D, Reavley Nicola J, Rossetto Alyssia, Jorm Anthony F
Behavioural Sciences Stream, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, PO Box 271, 25, Kynsey Road, Colombo 8, Sri Lanka.
Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, 207 Bouverie Street, Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia.
BMC Psychiatry. 2017 Jan 23;17(1):40. doi: 10.1186/s12888-017-1192-7.
Despite showing high rates of depression, university students prefer to seek assistance for their depression from informal sources, such as their friends, rather than seeking professional assistance. Therefore, the helping behaviours of those who provide informal help to these students need examination. This study examines the helping intentions of undergraduates in Sri Lanka towards their depressed peers and the correlates of their helping intentions.
The undergraduates were presented with a vignette of a hypothetical depressed undergraduate. A total of 4442 undergraduates responded to an open-ended question about how the person in the vignette should be helped if this person was someone they knew well. Their responses were coded in reference to established mental health first aid guidelines. Logistic and linear regression models were used to examine the predictors of their helping intentions.
The undergraduates' most common helping intentions were to listen/talk and support their peer. Only around a third considered the need for professional help. The overall quality of their helping intentions was poor, but better among those who recognised the problem as depression and those who had less stigmatising attitudes. There was some evidence that certain helping intentions of the undergraduates which were person-oriented or social network-related were better among females, those in higher years of study and among certain non-medical student groups. Intentions to encourage professional help were better among those who recognised the problem, but poorer among those with personal experiences of this problem and among those who perceived this problem to be a weakness and not a sickness.
Although the undergraduates may attempt to support their distressed peers, they may not show appropriate helping actions and may not encourage the use of professional assistance. Hence, they need to be educated on how best to respond to their distressed peers. Those with higher levels of stigma and inability to recognise the problem may be at greater risk of showing poorer helping responses towards their distressed peers.
尽管大学生中抑郁症发病率较高，但他们更倾向于从朋友等非正式渠道寻求抑郁症方面的帮助，而非专业援助。因此，需要考察那些为这些学生提供非正式帮助者的助人行为。本研究考察了斯里兰卡大学生对抑郁同伴的助人意愿及其助人意愿的相关因素。
向大学生展示一个假设的抑郁本科生的案例。共有4442名大学生回答了一个开放式问题，即如果案例中的人是他们非常熟悉的人，应该如何帮助他。他们的回答根据既定的心理健康急救指南进行编码。使用逻辑回归和线性回归模型来考察助人意愿的预测因素。
大学生最常见的助人意愿是倾听/交谈并支持同伴。只有约三分之一的人认为需要专业帮助。他们助人意愿的总体质量较差，但在那些认识到问题是抑郁症的人和那些较少有污名化态度的人中较好。有证据表明，大学生的某些以个人为导向或与社交网络相关的助人意愿在女性、高年级学生和某些非医学专业学生群体中更好。鼓励寻求专业帮助的意愿在那些认识到问题的人中较好，但在有过该问题亲身经历的人和那些认为该问题是弱点而非疾病的人中较差。
尽管大学生可能试图支持他们苦恼的同伴，但他们可能没有表现出适当的助人行为，也可能不鼓励使用专业援助。因此，需要对他们进行教育，使其了解如何最好地应对苦恼的同伴。那些污名化程度较高且无法认识到问题的人，对苦恼同伴表现出较差助人反应的风险可能更大。
