Natalie Mora, intern and third year psychology student,
shares her insights in help seeking behaviour in young people and
the evidence of improvement through the Internet.
Hi my name is Natalie I am an intern at the Inspire foundation and
a third year psychology student.
During my time at inspire I worked on auditing facts sheets for
ReachOut and found that the content
is extremely relevant to young people going through a variety of
issues. I was also working on
ReachOutPro which works towards connecting health care
professionals and youth through the
internet and giving ideas to these health care professionals of how
to broaden their services through
the internet. Through research of an assignment that I had to
complete in regards to working towards
bettering a social issue, I decided to look at help seeking
behaviour for young people with mental health
issues which is one of the areas that ReachOut works towards
bettering. I became very interested in
some of the literature about help seeking behaviours and the stigma
associated with having a mental
illness and especially the impact this had on young people. I also
thought that it could be very relevant
to ReachOutPro as help seeking behaviour and youth could go hand in
hand with the internet.
Help seeking behaviour is a big issue for individuals dealing with
mental health issues especially among
young people. A great deal of the reluctance to seek professional
help for mental health issues is
because of the negative social stigma associated with having mental
health problems. Through the
use of the internet we could address the issue of proving
professional help for young people without
feeling that others associate them with that negative stigma and in
turn increase the use of help seeking
behaviours among young people. I am sure that if you asked any
young person, would you prefer to
go to a psychologist to see if you have a mental health problem,
talk to your friends about it or google
what you can find about it on the internet and get some help there,
they will prefer googling it. This has
implications for how mental health professionals can target
help-seeking.
Research has also found that young people are affected by the
stigmas associated with mental
health issues and it does affect the likelihood of seeking help for
these problems. Eisenberg, Downs,
Golberstein and Zivin (2009) found that perceived public stigma
about mental health issues was
much higher than personal stigma and that personal stigma of these
mental health issues was
significantly associated with lower help-seeking of many different
ways. It was also found that one of
the determinants of having a higher personal stigma towards mental
health issues was youth (Eisenberg
et al., 2009). In a study which was specifically targeted at young
university students of ages between
18 and 22, Golberstein, Eisenberg and Gollust (2008) found that
perceived public stigma was negatively
associated with perceiving a need for help for mental health issues
and this was not found in older
students. From these articles we can see that the perceived public
stigma effects young people in a
much larger way than it would for adults which is why help seeking
behaviours for young people need to
be encouraged.
A great way that many young people can get past being associated
with that negative social stigma and
generally feel safe and free to access information they feel they
may need is through the internet. Young
people find it very easy to navigate across the internet and often
feel like it is a safe option to check on
something you may be worried about. I have often used the internet
for mental health issues I may be
worried about or that I may be worried about for my friends and
family and so have many of my friends.
With help seeking bahaviours being a major issue for young people
though needing the professional
help, if health care professionals worked dealing with patients and
especially young people through the
internet I think it would be extremely beneficial for these young
people and for society in general. If
mental health professionals are informed about the options of
reaching out to young people and using
those avenues such as the internet the quality of life of young
people can be significantly improved and
even perhaps save lives.
References
Eisenberg, D., Downs, M. F., Golberstein, E., & Zivin, K.
(2009). Stigma and help seeking for mental health
among college students. Medical Care Research and Review, 66(5),
522-541.
Golberstein, E., Eisenberg, D., & Gollust, S. E. (2008).
Perceived stigma and mental health care seeking.
Psychiatric Services, 59(4), 392-399.Natalie Mora, intern and
third year psychology student, shares her insights in help seeking
behaviour in young people and the evidence of improvement through
the Internet.
Hi my name is Natalie I am an intern at the Inspire foundation
and a third year psychology student. During my time at Inspire
I worked on auditing facts sheets for ReachOut and found that the
content is extremely relevant to young people going through a
variety of issues. I was also working on ReachOutPro which
works towards connecting health care professionals and youth
through the internet and giving ideas to these health care
professionals of how to broaden their services through the
internet.
Through research of an assignment that I had to complete in
regards to working towards bettering a social issue, I decided
to look at help seeking behaviour for young people with mental
health issues which is one of the areas that ReachOut works
towards bettering. I became very interested in some of the
literature about help seeking behaviours and the stigma associated
with having a mental illness and especially the impact this
had on young people. I also thought that it could be very
relevant to ReachOutPro as help seeking behaviour and youth
could go hand in hand with the internet.
Help seeking behaviour is a big issue for individuals dealing
with mental health issues especially among young people. A
great deal of the reluctance to seek professional help for mental
health issues is because of the negative social stigma
associated with having mental health problems. Through the use
of the internet we could address the issue of proving professional
help for young people without feeling that others associate
them with that negative stigma and in turn increase the use of help
seeking behaviours among young people.
I am sure that if you asked any young person, would you prefer
to go to a psychologist to see if you have a mental health
problem, talk to your friends about it or google what you can
find about it on the internet and get some help there, they will
prefer googling it. This has implications for how mental
health professionals can target help-seeking. Research has
also found that young people are affected by the stigmas associated
with mental health issues and it does affect the likelihood of
seeking help for these problems.
Eisenberg, Downs, Golberstein and Zivin (2009) found that
perceived public stigma about mental health issues was much
higher than personal stigma and that personal stigma of these
mental health issues was significantly associated with lower
help-seeking of many different ways. It was also found that one
of the determinants of having a higher personal stigma towards
mental health issues was youth (Eisenberg et al., 2009). In a
study which was specifically targeted at young university students
of ages between 18 and 22, Golberstein, Eisenberg and Gollust
(2008) found that perceived public stigma was
negatively associated with perceiving a need for help for
mental health issues and this was not found in
older students.
From these articles we can see that the perceived public stigma
effects young people in amuch larger way than it would for adults
which is why help seeking behaviours for young people need
to be encouraged. A great way that many young people can
get past being associated with that negative social stigma
and generally feel safe and free to access information they
feel they may need is through the internet. Young people find
it very easy to navigate across the internet and often feel like it
is a safe option to check on something you may be worried
about. I have often used the internet for mental health issues I
may be worried about or that I may be worried about for my
friends and family and so have many of my friends.
With help seeking bahaviours being a major issue for young
people though needing the professional help, if health care
professionals worked dealing with patients and especially young
people through the internet I think it would be extremely
beneficial for these young people and for society in general.
If mental health professionals are informed about the options
of reaching out to young people and using those avenues such
as the internet the quality of life of young people can be
significantly improved and even perhaps save lives.