Evaluation of nursing students' attitudes towards seeking psychological help and factors affecting their attitudes

Psychological help-seeking means to benefit different sources of support system for the difficulties people have. It is important to find out help-seeking attitudes and factors which affect these attitudes, earlier to protect, and to advance mental health. The aim of this study was to investigate nursing students' attitudes towards seeking psychological help and factors which affect their attitudes. The study sample included 248 nursing students exposed to problem based learning at Dokuz Eylul University School of Nursing in the academic year of 2006-2007. Data were collected with Help-Seeking Scale. Obtained data were evaluated with variance analysis, t-test and Mann-Whitney U test. The third and fourth year students had more favorable mean scores for interpersonal openness, being forced and confidence in counselor than the first and second year students. In view of the obtained results, it can be recommended that first and second year students should be followed more carefully in terms of psychological problems and that a longitudinal study should be conducted on students' attitudes towards seeking psychological help throughout their study period. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved