Browsing by Subject "Help seeking"

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Encouraging patients to talk with a physician about depression : the transition to a print medium
(2011-05) Champlin, Sara Elizabeth; Mackert, Michael; Rochlen, Aaron B.
Major depression is a prevalent and harmful illness in the United States. About 7% of Americans experience depressive symptoms each year. Leaving depression untreated can result in poor general health and increased susceptibility to severe health risks such as suicide. Although there exists a variety of effective treatment methods for depression, the National Health and Nutrition Survey 2005-2006 reports that less than 30% of depressed individuals will be seen by a mental health care professional. It is essential that current efforts work toward encouraging depressed persons to seek treatment. A number of health promotion campaigns for mental health have tried reaching depressed individuals with little success. Created through a series of projects conducted with depressed men and women, Faces of Depression is a messaging strategy campaign that may prove highly effective with this audience. The campaign utilized video and computer program media in health clinic waiting areas to encourage patients with depressive symptoms to seek help from a primary care physician. These forms of media often capture attention; however, they also require many resources that may not be readily available at a health clinic. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether a cost-sensitive poster version of the Faces of Depression campaign would be an effective alternative to the original media. Undergraduate students completed an online survey concerning their willingness to discuss depression with a physician and their reactions to the health poster. Some had previously sought help from a mental health professional (33%), yet few had received treatment for depression (11%). However, 48% of the participants met the criteria for having current depressive symptoms. Although scores for the posters’ visual elements were low, the idea of the poster in a health clinic waiting area was well received by those currently depressed and non-depressed. Moreover, non-depressed persons were likely to indicate that they would seek help in response to the poster if experiencing depressive symptoms. The study is limited by poster design elements. Amendments to these aesthetic details would likely increase poster effectiveness. Future research should ensure that health promotion materials target those currently experiencing symptoms, especially men.
Help seeking consumers : conceptual framework and empirical investigation
(2017-05-05) Lee, Hyun Jung; Gershoff, Andrew David, 1966-; Broniarczyk, Susan M.; Irwin, Julie R.; Raghunathan, Rajagopal; Yeager, David S.
The goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the field’s understanding of the factors that influence when and how consumers are likely to seek and avoid seeking help. Essay 1 provides the conceptual framework covering important factors that influence consumers’ motivation to solve a problem, the help-seeking process, and moderators of this process. Consumers often encounter a problem while striving to achieve a goal, and the problem-solving requires generation or consideration of potential means. These means may include strategies whereby consumers use their own effort and resources, but may also include soliciting effort and resources from others. The decision to ask for help involves costs and benefits related to personal and social domains. Importantly, such cost-benefit analysis can be moderated by factors related to perceptions of the social context, self, others, and the needed help (e.g. social norm, personal mastery goal, interpersonal judgment and fairness, and expedient need). Essay 2 focuses on a specific context to explore how contextual cues in the help seeking environment influence perceptions of norms for help-seeking. I demonstrate that the decision to post a question on an online product forum can be influenced by the perceived social norm established by preexisting questions that peer consumers have posted on the forum (studies 1 and 2). Consumers are often concerned with others’ perceptions when seeking help in public settings. To accurately identify the specific social judgment that hinders consumers’ help-seeking decisions, I examine several factors that could mitigate consumers’ reluctance: public self-assessment of one’s own question (studies 3, 4, and 8), public acknowledgment of one’s achievements in other domains (study 5), the communal norm of the forum (study 6), and the ability to reward the potential help-givers (study 7 and 8). This work has the potential to help marketers recognize and mitigate context-relevant social and emotional barriers to seeking help and facilitate consumer help-seeking decisions. With this knowledge, marketers may also enrich help-platforms in ways consumers will truly appreciate while also facilitating the development of consumers’ lasting relationships with each other and with the firm.
The impact of a culturally relevant psychoeducational intervention on depression health care seeking among African American college students
(2017-12) Bamgbade, Benita Adejoke; Barner, Jamie C.; Brown, Carolyn M; Ford, Kentya C; Lawson, William
The purpose of this study was to develop a culturally relevant theory-based psychoeducational intervention for African American (AA) college students and to understand how it can impact depression help seeking willingness and subsequent behavior. The study tested the impact of the intervention on participants’ willingness, attitude, perceived behavioral control (PBC) and mental illness stigma (MIS) from baseline to immediate post-test. Additionally, utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the study tested the significance of each TPB model construct variable (attitude, subjective norm [SN] and PBC) in predicting AA college students’ willingness to seek professional help for depression. The study also examined the contributions of MIS and cultural variables (medical mistrust, self-reliance and religiosity) to the TPB model. Of the 103 AA college students who signed up to participate in the study intervention, 75 completed the paper pre-test (72.8% participation rate). Of these participants, 70 (93.3%) completed the paper immediate post-test and 50 (66.7%) completed the web-based 3 month follow-up survey. Three focus groups were conducted to collect information regarding AA college students’ beliefs toward seeking professional help for depression. The intervention improved AA college students’ willingness to seek professional help, their attitude toward professional help seeking, their perceived behavioral control over professional help seeking and decreased their MIS. The TPB constructs were not significant predictors of AA college student’s willingness. Neither the direct nor the indirect models were statistically significant, explaining only 12.1 percent (Adjusted R2= 3.4%) and 15.0 percent (Adjusted R2= 5.4%) of the variance in willingness, respectively. Additionally, MIS and the cultural variables did not add to the prediction of willingness. The results of this study support the utility of culturally relevant psychoeducational interventions for AA college students in improving willingness to seek professional help. The mechanism by which this occurs is unclear and may not be through the TPB model. Future studies evaluating factors that impact AA college students’ willingness to seek help for depression are needed to better understand help seeking in this population and to further refine culturally relevant psychoeducational interventions.