Department of Nursing, Debre Berhan University, Debre Berhan, Ethiopia.
Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
PLoS One. 2019 Feb 22;14(2):e0212657. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212657. eCollection 2019.
Globally, the mental health help-seeking behavior of university students is reported to be poor; less than one-third of university students with common mental disorders (CMDs) report having sought help from formal sources. Failure to seek treatment is associated with prolonged disability and poor mental health outcomes, including suicide. In Ethiopia, little is known about the help-seeking behavior of university students for CMDs.
This study aimed to assess the prevalence and determinants of help seeking, and sources of help sought by Jimma University undergraduate students with CMDs.
Seven hundred and sixty students were selected to participate in this cross-sectional study using multi-stage sampling. Sources of help were identified using the Actual Help-Seeking Questionnaire. CMDs were assessed using the 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. Binary logistic regression analysis was used for both univariate and multivariable analysis.
Of the sampled students, 58.4% were found to have current CMDs. Of those with current CMDs, 78.4% had sought help for their problems. The majority (83.8%) of participants who sought help did so from informal sources. Compared to students who had 'very good' overall levels of satisfaction with life, those who had 'good', 'fair', and 'poor or very poor' overall level of satisfaction with life were less likely to seek help (p-value = 0.021, 0.014, and 0.011, respectively). Lastly, having no previous history of help-seeking was significantly associated with seeking help for CMDs (p-value<0.001).
More than half of Jimma University students were found to have a high risk of CMDs and the majority of those with CMDs sought help from informal sources. Future studies are needed to explore the barriers of seeking help from formal resources, and the effects of not receiving help from formal sources for CMDs symptoms.
在全球范围内，据报道大学生的心理健康寻求帮助行为不佳；不足三分之一的患有常见精神障碍（CMD）的大学生会向正规来源寻求帮助。未寻求治疗与残疾时间延长和心理健康状况不佳有关，包括自杀。在埃塞俄比亚，人们对大学生寻求 CMD 帮助的行为知之甚少。
本研究旨在评估吉姆马大学本科生 CMD 的寻求帮助的流行率和决定因素以及寻求帮助的来源。
使用多阶段抽样选择了 760 名学生参加这项横断面研究。使用实际寻求帮助问卷确定了帮助来源。使用 10 项 Kessler 心理困扰量表评估 CMD。使用单变量和多变量分析进行了二元逻辑回归分析。
在所抽取的学生中，58.4%的学生被发现患有当前 CMD。在患有当前 CMD 的学生中，78.4%的学生为他们的问题寻求了帮助。大多数（83.8%）寻求帮助的参与者是从非正式来源寻求帮助的。与对生活总体满意度“非常好”的学生相比，对生活总体满意度“好”、“一般”和“差或很差”的学生寻求帮助的可能性较小（p 值分别为 0.021、0.014 和 0.011）。最后，没有以前寻求帮助的历史与寻求 CMD 的帮助显著相关（p 值<0.001）。
发现超过一半的吉姆马大学学生有很高的 CMD 风险，大多数患有 CMD 的学生从非正式来源寻求帮助。未来的研究需要探讨从正规资源寻求帮助的障碍，以及未从正规来源获得 CMD 症状帮助的影响。
