Attitude towards Formal and Informal Help Seeking among Youth of India: Assessing the Role of Self and Perceived stigma

A significant common reason for reduced help seeking behaviour is stigma. The current study explored the relation between help seeking attitudes and mental health stigma (self and perceived) on the youth of India. For this purpose, the research deployed Self-Stigma of Help Seeking Scale (SSOSH), Perception of Stigmatization by Others for Seeking Help (PSOSH), and General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ). The research was conducted on a sample of young adults belonging to the age group of 18-26. The sample size was 140 young adults. For data analysis, SPSS was used to examine the relationship between variables using Pearson Correlation Coefficient. Based on this, it was determined that self-stigma and perceived stigma impact on the help-seeking attitudes among young individuals affecting their decisions to seek help from informal and formal sources. It was found that there is a significant relationship between Self-Stigma and Perceived Stigma. In the 2 vignettes that were presented, there was a significant negative relation found between Self Stigma, Perceived Stigma and Help- seeking in the case of ‘suicide ideation’. On the other hand, for the ‘emotional problem’ vignette, Self-Stigma was significantly and negatively related with informal sources. However, there was no significant relationship between self-stigma and formal sources. For perceived stigma, there is no significant relationship with informal and formal sources of help-seeking for emotional problems.