Perceived barriers and facilitators to mental health help-seeking in young people: a systematic review

By Amelia Gulliver, K. Griffiths, Helen Christensen. BMC Psychiatry, 2010

2,876 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundAdolescents and young adults frequently experience mental disorders, yet tend not to seek help. This systematic review aims to summarise reported barriers and facilitators of help-seeking in young people using both qualitative research from surveys, focus groups, and interviews and quantitative data from published surveys. It extends previous reviews through its systematic research methodology and by the inclusion of published studies describing what young people themselves perceive are the barriers and facilitators to help-seeking for common mental health problems.MethodsTwenty two published studies of perceived barriers or facilitators in adolescents or young adults were identified through searches of PubMed, PsycInfo, and the Cochrane database. A thematic analysis was undertaken on the results reported in the qualitative literature and quantitative literature.ResultsFifteen qualitative and seven quantitative studies were identified. Young people perceived stigma and embarrassment, problems recognising symptoms (poor mental health literacy), and a preference for self-reliance as the most important barriers to help-seeking. Facilitators were comparatively under-researched. However, there was evidence that young people perceived positive past experiences, and social support and encouragement from others as aids to the help-seeking process.ConclusionsStrategies for improving help-seeking by adolescents and young adults should focus on improving mental health literacy, reducing stigma, and taking into account the desire of young people for self-reliance.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f95edcc0bd6116b085c3f189a000be87dd3d6115

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Applied Psychology

In Clinical Psychology

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

What is the impact of mental health-related stigma on help-seeking? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies (2014, background): “A systematic review of barriers and facilitators to mental health help-seeking in young people showed the key barriers to be stigma, confidentiality issues, lack of accessibility, self-reliance, low knowledge about mental health services and fear/stress about the act of helpseeking or the source of ”
Comparison of Prevalence and Associated Factors of Anxiety and Depression Among People Affected by versus People Unaffected by Quarantine During the COVID-19 Epidemic in Southwestern China (2020, background): “Their perception of stigma and embarrassment and their preference for self-reliance were the most important barriers to help-seeking [35].”
Computer-Delivered and Web-Based Interventions to Improve Depression, Anxiety, and Psychological Well-Being of University Students: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2014, background): “Young people do not seek out help for several reasons, including personal preferences for self-reliance in managing their mental health [9].”
What are the barriers, facilitators and interventions targeting help-seeking behaviours for common mental health problems in adolescents? A systematic review (2020, positive): “This is in line with previous studies suggesting that teens who are most in need are less likely to seek help [1, 11, 15].”
Artificially intelligent chatbots in digital mental health interventions: a review (2021, background): “For example, research suggests that young people are hesitant to access mental health care due to perceived stigma [123].”
Barriers to and Facilitators of User Engagement With Digital Mental Health Interventions: Systematic Review (2021, background): “In line with previous work [2], this again indicates that privacy can be important for people who experience stigma for or reluctance to help-seeking.”