Abstract
Despite the high incidence rate of mental health problems in student populations, mental health help-seeking behaviour is relatively under-researched in the student population. While psychological services are freely available in most universities, these are largely underutilised. In response to these factors, this research aims to quantitatively describe the barriers to mental health help-seeking behaviours of university students at the University of Johannesburg.
Participants were a convenience sample of 232 students at the University of Johannesburg. The Barriers to Mental Health Services Scale-Revised (BMHSS-R) was used to measure the barriers affecting mental health help-seeking behaviour of students at the University of Johannesburg. Descriptive statistics were used to examine mean scores (along with measures of dispersion) for each scale and subscale of the BMHSS-R and differences across men and women were analysed.
The results revealed that students scored almost equally on intrinsic and extrinsic barriers. The barriers affecting the sample as a whole to the greatest degree were insurance/payment and belief that depression is normal. No significant differences were found across gender on these subscales. Transportation was the third highest mean, with women scoring significantly higher on this subscale than men. These results may suggest a greater need for consideration of extrinsic barriers to students’ mental health help-seeking behaviours in future research.