The Effects of Health Professional Self-Stigma and Anticipated Risks or Benefits on Nursing Students’ Help-Seeking: A Descriptive Research Study - Abstract
Nursing students are vulnerable to psychological problems, and such problems may contribute to attrition or impaired practices. Nevertheless, they do not
seek help. Identifying barriers to seeking help is an urgent subject. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore Japanese nursing students’ intention to
seek help from and disclosing psychological problems to formal and informal social support networks.
A total of 565 Bachelor of Nursing students from two universities in Japan participated. A simultaneous multiple regression analysis was performed with
health professional self-stigma and the anticipated benefits/risks of seeking professional help as predictors of respondents’ help-seeking from mental health
professionals and nonprofessionals.
All tested predictors—health professional self-stigma and the anticipated risks benefits of seeking professional help.”—were significant on respondents’
intention to seek help from professionals. As for respondents’ help-seeking from nonprofessionals, the anticipated risks and benefits were significant predictors,
but health professional self-stigma was not.
This study identified obstacles to nursing students seeking help from formal and informal support. It is recommended that educators and clinicians inform
nursing students about the benefits and risks of receiving help from professionals and nonprofessionals. Educators must dispel the stigma related to seeking
mental health services and engender in students a healthy identity as health and helping professionals. Nursing students should be taught that not seeking help
for their psychological problems may result in impaired practices, which may be harmful to their patients.