Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
Kantar Public, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2023 Mar;58(3):489-499. doi: 10.1007/s00127-022-02361-4. Epub 2022 Sep 16.
Many young people with mental ill-health do not seek support, and developmental growth in self-reliance may be a barrier to help-seeking. Increasing autonomy is a positive developmental task for youth and a key aspect of resilience. This study examined the influence of perceived social support and resilience on the previously unexamined relationship between self-reliance and intentions to seek help from informal, professional, and self-help sources for mental health problems.
An online survey was completed by a representative Australian community sample of 5,203 young people aged 12-25 years (half female), in May-June 2020.
Path analysis showed the hypothesised conceptual model did not fit the data well, but a modified model was a good fit. Higher self-reliance was associated with lower intentions to seek informal and professional help, as expected, but not with greater intentions for self-help. The relationship between self-reliance and informal help-seeking intentions was fully mediated by perceived social support, whereas the relationship between self-reliance and professional help-seeking was also direct. Perceived social support fully mediated the relationship between self-reliance and resilience. Intentions to use self-help were not influenced by variables in the study, but higher self-help intentions were associated with higher professional help-seeking intentions. Associations were consistent across age and gender groups.
The results show the critical role of social support for combating some of the unhelpful aspects of self-reliance for mental health help-seeking in young people. Future research should explore how self-reliance can hinder or be harnessed to facilitate accessing appropriate mental health.
许多有心理健康问题的年轻人不会寻求支持，而自力更生的发展增长可能是寻求帮助的障碍。增强自主性是年轻人积极的发展任务，也是韧性的关键方面。本研究考察了感知社会支持和韧性对以前未检验的自力更生与寻求心理健康问题的非正式、专业和自助资源的帮助意愿之间关系的影响。
2020 年 5 月至 6 月，对澳大利亚代表性社区的 5203 名 12-25 岁的年轻人（男女各半）进行了在线调查。
路径分析表明，假设的概念模型与数据不太吻合，但修正后的模型拟合度较好。正如预期的那样，更高的自力更生与寻求非正式和专业帮助的意愿较低有关，但与寻求自助的意愿无关。自力更生与非正式帮助意愿之间的关系完全由感知社会支持中介，而自力更生与专业帮助意愿之间的关系也是直接的。感知社会支持完全中介了自力更生和韧性之间的关系。自助意愿不受研究变量的影响，但较高的自助意愿与较高的专业帮助意愿相关。关联在年龄和性别群体中是一致的。
结果表明，社会支持在克服年轻人心理健康帮助寻求中自力更生的一些无益方面方面发挥着关键作用。未来的研究应探讨如何利用自力更生来阻碍或促进适当的心理健康服务的获取。
