To seek or not to seek: Factors that predict help-seeking behaviors

Despite the prevalence of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, and the severity of its symptoms among Asian Americans, it is evidently seen that they underutilize mental health care services (Alegria et al., 2008 Le Meyer, Zane, Cho, & Takeuchi, 2009, as cited in Kim & Zane, 2016 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2001 as cited in Loya, Reddy, & Hinshaw, 2010). The researchers identified factors that may affect the help-seeking behaviors specifically sociocultural factors such as stigma and Asian values such as conformity to norms and collectivism. With this, the researchers aim to examine these factors as to why Asian individuals experience low rate of underutilization of mental health care services and help-seeking behaviors of Asian individuals, as mediated by two Asian cultural values such as conformity to norms and collectivism. The researchers conducted an online survey to participants who are 18-24 years old, currently living in Metro Manila, and is not clinically diagnosed with any mental health disorder. This study gathered 263 participants and was able to gather findings that the adherence to Asian cultural values of conformity to norms and adherence to Asian cultural values of collectivism both did not have a significant mediating effect to social stigma and help-seeking behavior. The study also found that social stigma has a strong significant effect on the help-seeking behavior of a Filipino young adult