Help Seeking Behavior of Undergraduate and Graduate University Students in Rawalpindi and Islamabad

Abstract

Young people have high vulnerability for developing mental health issues due to developmental changes, life stressors, and high external demands (Husain, 2018). Paradoxically, they also have high reluctance to seek professional help for their mental health concerns according to prior research. To understand their help seeking behavior and factors influencing it, 210 undergraduate and graduate university students (F=146, M=64 male) between age 18-26, from Rawalpindi and Islamabad were selected for this study. Common student stressors particularly university-related and related to current pandemic of covid-19, were examined, and reported. In the light of the high number of stressors, 41.9% of participants were found to be severely distressed, 33.3% moderately distressed and 24.8% had no to minimal distress. Correlational analysis indicated a small to moderate relationship of university-related stressors (r= 0.61, p<.01), pandemic-related stressors (r= 0.59, p<.01) and treatment fears (r= 0.28, p<.01), with psychological distress. Up to 50% variance in psychological distress was explained by overall perceived student stressors and treatment fears (R²=0.50; F=69.42, p<0.001). To cater to psychological distress, young may have varying intention to seek help from different sources. Findings showed they had a high preference to seek help from informal help sources, moderate preference to seek help from no one, and least preference for help seeking from formal help sources. In line with this, the examination of available professional help services and their usage revealed that 65% of universities offered counseling services but only 26.2% of students had sought professional help in the past from university counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Similarly, 61% or more than half of the participants, had low intention to seek professional help in the future as well. Such low intention ratings although expected but were highly surprising. To get a deeper understanding of the possible underlying factors, the relationship of professional help seeking intention with psychological x distress and treatment fears was studied. Only treatment fears were significantly related and predicted low intention to seek professional help while explaining 6% variance in it (r= -0.22, p<.01; R²=0.06; F=6.20, p<0.01). Furthermore, when the rate and nature of perceived barriers faced in accessing professional help was studied, findings revealed that prominent barriers included Wanting to solve the problem on my own, Thinking the problem would get better by itself, Dislike talking about feelings, emotions, or thoughts, preferring to get help from family or friends, and being unsure where to go to get professional care, among others. Lastly, additional findings revealed the difference of treatment fears and professional help seeking intention across sociodemographic variables i.e., age, gender and prior professional help seeking. The significance and implications of the study findings have been discussed along with recommendations to improve mental health service use among young people. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also provided.