Why do adolescents have low intentions to seek help from professionals?

(Photo provided by Sof Mehlitz)

“We found that adolescents had low intentions to seek help from both teachers and mental health professionals, that emotional control was a significant predictor for adolescents' intentions to seek help from teachers but not mental health professionals, and that gender did not moderate the relationships between individual characteristics and level of intentions.” ~Sof Mehlitz

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*In the following article, TS refers to The Synapse, and SM refers to Sof Mehlitz;

TS: Could you briefly introduce yourself, your supervisor, the topic of your thesis, and the field it contributes to?

SM: My name is Sof Mehlitz and my pronouns are they/them. I am graduating with a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Psychology with a specialization in Neuroscience, and a minor in Biology. My honours thesis supervisor is Dr. Heather Sears, and the topic of our research focused on adolescents' intentions to seek help from mental health professionals and teachers for a personal or emotional problem. This research contributes to the field of clinical psychology, more specifically adolescent development. 

TS: What was the inspiration for your study, your research question, and the main results?

SM: We know based on past research that adolescents tend to have low intentions to seek help from professional sources, but it is unclear what contributes to these low help-seeking intentions. We focused on three main research questions: 

1) To what extent do adolescents intend to seek help from teachers and from mental health professionals?; 

2) Are these intentions related to individual characteristics such as emotional control (i.e. a masculine gender norm that involves being able to conceal one’s emotions), self-reliance (i.e. a masculine gender norm that involves relying on one’s self), and self-disclosure competence (i.e. being able to communicate one’s personal experiences well)?; and

3) Is the relationship between level of intentions and individual characteristics moderated by gender? 

We found that adolescents had low intentions to seek help from both teachers and mental health professionals, that emotional control was a significant predictor for adolescents' intentions to seek help from teachers but not mental health professionals, and that gender did not moderate the relationships between individual characteristics and level of intentions. 

TS: Could you provide a brief summary of the methods/ experimental procedure used in this study?

SM: Data was collected by means of self-report questionnaires. The participants consisted of New Brunswick high school students in grades 9 to 12. They reported on help-seeking intentions using a modified version of the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire, and individual characteristics were measured using two subscales from the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory and the Adolescent Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire. 

TS: Are there any future studies that will be conducted based on your method or results?

SM: Given the interesting results from this study, it is possible that more research on this topic will be conducted. 

TS: What would you consider the most intriguing part of your research?

SM: Interestingly, individual characteristics appeared to influence help-seeking from teachers and mental health professionals differently. This suggests that help-seeking intentions are shaped by different factors, and that the type of profession is a big factor. Ψ

Created for The Synapse by Incé Husain.