title: Psychological Predictors of Seeking Help from Mental Health Practitioners among a Large Sample of Polish Young Adults.
abstract: Although the corresponding literature contains a substantial number of studies on the relationship between psychological factors and attitude towards seeking professional psychological help, the role of some determinants remains unexplored, especially among Polish young adults. The present study investigated diversity among a large cohort of Polish university students related to attitudes towards help-seeking and the regulative roles of gender, level of university education, health locus of control and sense of coherence. The total sample comprised 1706 participants who completed the following measures: Attitude Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale-SF, Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, and Orientation to Life Questionnaire (SOC-29). They were recruited from various university faculties and courses by means of random selection. The findings revealed that, among socio-demographic variables, female gender moderately and graduate of university study strongly predict attitude towards seeking help. Internal locus of control and all domains of sense of coherence are significantly correlated with the scores related to the help-seeking attitude. Attitudes toward psychological help-seeking are significantly related to female gender, graduate university education, internal health locus of control and sense of coherence. Further research must be performed in Poland in order to validate these results in different age and social groups.
authors: Medical Faculty, University of Rzeszow, Rzeszow 35-310, Poland. lidiaiadam.perenc@wp.pl.
authors: Lidia
authors: L
authors: Perenc
authors: Faculty of Education, University of Rzeszow, Rzeszow 35-310, Poland. mieczrad@univ.rzeszow.pl.
authors: Mieczyslaw
authors: M
authors: Radochonski
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011044:Poland; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: attitudes; help-seeking; mental health; prevention; young adults