Barriers to Chinese college students seeking psychological help from professionals

Chinese students were found less likely to seek professional help for psychological problems compared to their western counterparts. The purpose of the present research was to investigate the barriers to Chinese college students seeking psychological help from professionals. Quantitative data on Asian values, social supports, self-stigma, subjective norms, behavior control, mental health knowledge and beliefs, problem severity, and past help-seeking experiences, help-seeking attitudes and intention, and student\u27s demographic information were obtained from surveying 1,408 Chinese college students at three universities in mainland China. The results showed that 8.5% of the students surveyed had sought professional psychological help. Help-seeking attitudes served as a significant mediator between Asian values, social supports, self-stigma, subjective norms, behavior control, mental health knowledge and beliefs, and past help-seeking experiences and help-seeking intention. Asian values were negatively related to help-seeking intention through help-seeking attitudes. Students with lower level of Asian values held more positive help-seeking attitudes and were more willing to seek professional psychological help. Students with better social supports showed more positive attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, and were more willing to seek professional help. Self-stigma and subjective norms were negatively related to students\u27 help-seeking attitudes and intention. Students with lower-level self-stigma and lower-level subjective norms showed more favorable attitudes toward professional psychological services and were more willing to seek professional services. Behavior control was positively associated with help-seeking intention through help-seeking attitudes. Higher level behavior control ability predicted more favorable help-seeking attitudes and higher level of help-seeking intention. Past help-seeking experiences were positively related to help-seeking intention through help-seeking attitudes. Students who had at some time sought professional psychological help held more positive attitudes toward seeking help, and were more willing to seek professional help for current problems. Different from the above factors, problem severity directly predicted students\u27 intention toward professional psychological help-seeking. Students with more severe problems were more willing to seek professional service. The implications and limitations were discussed