Kate McKinney

Much research has demonstrated that college students experience a high rate of mental health problems. Despite this high prevalence rate, college students are unlikely to engage in mental health help-seeking behaviors. To further understand the help-seeking patterns of college students, we investigated college students’ preferred help-seeking sources, attitudes towards help-seeking, and intent to seek help for mental health problems. Additionally, we examined how experiences of discrimination and social belonging inform attitudes towards help-seeking and intention to seek help. Because sexual and gender minority students experience unique stressors during college (e.g., homophobic stigmatization) and are more likely to experience mental health problems, we investigated differences in help-seeking between sexual and gender minority and cisgender and heterosexual college students. Results indicate that college students are more willing to seek help from informal sources, sexual and gender minority college students have different help-seeking preferences than heterosexual and cisgender college students, greater social belongingness facilitates positive attitudes towards help-seeking, and experiences of discrimination facilitate negative attitudes towards help-seeking. Overall, these findings suggest that social stigmatization and support have the power to shape individuals’ attitudes towards help-seeking which then affects their help-seeking behavior.