ArticleBMJ open2020
Causal beliefs of mental illness and its impact on help-seeking attitudes: a cross-sectional study among university students in Singapore.
Article in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Navigating mental health issues: exploring cultural causal attribution, stigmatization, and care recommendation behavior in Pakistani adolescents and young adults.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Article
- Psychometric properties of the chinese version of the value-based stigma inventory (VASI): a translation and validation study.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Changes in Patient Discourse: A Qualitative Study Based on the Treatment Experience of Chinese Patients with Somatization Symptoms.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Cross-cultural comparison of mental illness stigma and help-seeking attitudes: a multinational population-based study from 16 Arab countries and 10,036 individuals.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2023Article
- Measurement properties of patient-reported outcome measures of mental help-seeking attitude: a systematic review of psychometric properties.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Review
- Observational
- The potential impact of an anti-stigma intervention on mental health help-seeking attitudes among university students.BMC psychiatry · 2020Article
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9 authors.
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Abstract
objectivesA considerable proportion of those who suffer from mental illnesses in Singapore do not seek any form of professional help. The reluctance to seek professional help could be due to misconceptions about the causes of mental illnesses. Research has shown that help-seeking attitudes can predict actual service use. As young adults are most at risk of developing mental illnesses, this study aims to elucidate the impact of causal beliefs about mental illness on help-seeking attitudes among university students in Singapore.
designPrior to attending an anti-stigma intervention, data on the Causal Beliefs about Mental Illness, Inventory of Attitudes towards Seeking Mental Health services and questions pertaining to sociodemographic background were collected from participants using a self-administered questionnaire. Multiple linear regressions were performed to examine the relationship between causal beliefs and help-seeking, as well as their sociodemographic correlates. SETTINGS: A university in Singapore.
participants390 students who were studying in a University in Singapore.
resultsYounger age was associated with higher scores on psychosocial attribution, while prior social contact with individuals with mental illness was significantly associated with lower scores on personality attribution. With regard to help-seeking attitudes; being a male and personality attribution were significantly associated with lower scores on 'Psychological Openness' and 'Indifference to Stigma', while psychosocial attribution was significantly associated with higher scores on 'Help-seeking Propensity'. Having prior social contact also predicted higher 'Psychological Openness', while being in Year 2 and 3 predicted lower scores on 'Indifference to Stigma'.
conclusionFindings from this study suggest that help-seeking attitudes might be influenced by causal beliefs, with personality attribution being the most impairing. Hence, to reduce the wide treatment gap in Singapore, anti-stigma interventions targeting young people could focus on addressing beliefs that attribute mental illness to the personality of the individual.
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