The impact of previous experience of depression and previous help seeking behaviour upon intentions to seek help for varying severity levels of depression in the future

Help seeking behaviour can be seen as a decision-making process that follows the stages of symptom appraisal, attitudes towards help seeking and translating intentions into behaviour. If people can be encouraged to seek help early on when they experience depression, this can prevent the escalation of difficulties. The aim of the present study was to understand the process of help seeking for depression, with a focus on how severity of symptoms, past experiences with depression and past help seeking for depression might influence future decision-making. Online social networks were utilised to generate a sample of 202 participants (M=33.5 years, SD=9.80) of which 61% were female. Participants completed the hospital anxiety and depression scale, a brief state measure of anxiety and depression, to control for their current levels of distress. Participants were then presented with three short vignettes describing a person experiencing depression of different severity levels (mild, moderate, and severe). These vignettes were created for this study, and had been piloted. Participants were asked to rate either their actual help seeking behaviour if they had experienced that severity of depression in the past, or their intentions to seek help if they had not experienced that severity of depression in the past. Help seeking routes included both formal and informal sources of help. Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the more severe the symptoms of depression the higher the reported help seeking behaviour and intention for both formal and informal help. Intention to seek informal help as well as help seeking behaviour from informal sources was higher than from formal sources of help for mild and moderate symptoms of depression. For severe symptoms of depression, both formal and informal help seeking and help seeking intentions were at similar levels. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOV A) indicated that intention to seek help for more severe symptoms of depression in the future was not related to past experience of depression of different severity levels, whereas past help seeking behaviour was correlated with increased intention to seek help for more severe symptoms of depression. The theoretical implications of the study, as well as the implication for practice are discussed and recommendations for future research are offered.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo