THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACCULTURATION AND HELP SEEKING ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR OF ASIAN INDIANS IN THE UNITED STATES

The Asian Indian population in the United States continues to expand rapidly. At the same time, little research exists that has examined the overall mental health needs of this group or how their level of acculturation affects their help seeking attitudes and behaviors. Research on Asian Americans (of which Asian Indians are a sub-group) that has assessed how acculturation affects help seeking attitudes and utilization behavior has yielded inconsistent results. One possible explanation for the discrepant findings may be due to the way acculturation has been conceptualized and measured. Specifically, most studies have measured acculturation unilinearly, while current research shows that acculturation may be best measured as a bilinear construct. The purpose of the present study was to assess the influence of acculturation on the help seeking attitudes and professional utilization behavior of Asian Indians living in the United States using a bilinear measure of acculturation. The study sample consisted of 266 Asian Indians currently living in the United States. Acculturation was assessed bilinearly using the Asian American Multidimensional Acculturation Scale (AAMAS; Chung, Kim & Abreu, 2004), that allowed for classification into one of four acculturation groups: integrated, assimilated, separated, and marginalized. Help seeking attitudes was measured using the Inventory of Attitudes Toward Seeking Psychological Services (IASMHS; Mackenzie, Knox, Gekoski & Macaulay, 2004), and a demographic questionnaire assessed utilization behaviors and participants’ backgrounds. Results indicate that integrated and assimilated individuals demonstrated more positive help seeking attitudes than separated and marginalized individuals, while no difference was found among the groups in terms of their professional utilization behavior. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.Ph.D. in Psychology, May 201