Mental Health Stigma and Self-Concealment as Predictors of Help-Seeking Attitudes among Latina/o College Students in the
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Mental Health Stigma and Self-Concealment as Predictors of Help-Seeking Attitudes among Latina/o College Students in the United States Hadrian Mendoza & Akihiko Masuda & Kevin M. Swartout
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract The study examined whether mental health stigma and self-concealment are uniquely related to various dimensions of attitudes toward seeking professional psychological services (i.e., help-seeking attitudes) in Latina/o college students. Data from 129 Latina/o undergraduates (76 % female) were used in the analysis. Results revealed that mental health stigma was a unique predictor of overall help-seeking attitudes. Mental health stigma was also significantly related to recognition of need for psychotherapeutic help, stigma tolerance, and interpersonal openness, but not to confidence in mental health practitioners. Self-concealment was uniquely related to stigma tolerance and interpersonal openness. Keywords Latinos . College students . Help-seeking attitudes . Self-concealment . Mental health stigma
Introduction At 50.5 million people, or 16.3 % of the total population, Latinos1 are now the largest minority group in the United States, expanding at a rate four times greater than the overall national trend across all regions (Humes et al. 2011). Research regarding the prevalence of psychological disorders among Latinos suggests that they experience psychological problems at similar or slightly lower rates compared to European Americans (AlegrÃa et al. 2008; Breslau et al. 2006; Grant et al. 2004; Kessler et al. 2005). Prevalence aside, Latinos as a group experience greater psychological distress due to disparities in access to quality mental health care (Blanco et al. 2007; Cardemil and Sarmiento 2009; Smedley et al. 2003; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2001; Vega et al. 2007).
1 BLatinos^ will be used as the generic term throughout the paper when referring to people of Latin American extraction or descent. When the matter relates to specific gender groups, Latinas (women) and Latinos (men) will be the terms used.
H. Mendoza (*) : A. Masuda : K. M. Swartout Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Int J Adv Counselling
Compounding the inequity in access to mental health care, as a group Latinos in the U.S. historically have underutilized the professional mental health services that are available (for a review of such, see Cabassa et al. 2006). For example, Wang et al. (2005) found English-speaking Latinos with DSM-IV psychological disorders to seek mental health treatment on average 40 % less often than European Americans with such disorders. As well, Latinos are as much as three times more likely to terminate mental health treatment prematurely when compared to non-Latino patients/clients in the U.S. (Olfson et al. 2009). Of the Latinos who do seek mental health treatment, most do not seek help beyond their primary care physician (Bridges et al. 2012). In addition to the general U.S. Latin
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