Exploring the roles of locus-of-hope dimensions and self-stigma on help-seeking intentions among Filipinos

• Main Author: Cunanan, Angela Lorraine P.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2021
• Subjects: Help-seeking behavior; Hope; Stigma (Social psychology); Positive psychology; Mental health; Clinical Psychology; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_psych/7; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=etdm_psych
• Institution: De La Salle University

Although help-seeking serves as a form of adaptive coping that enables better well-being outcomes, research points towards a general reluctance to seek help for mental health problems. Burgeoning research exploring help-seeking facilitators looked into the potential role of positive psychology, particularly on the character strength of hope. In this thesis, the locus-of-hope model was used to understand how external dimensions of hope relate to formal and informal help-seeking intentions of Filipinos during the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-stigma was also added to the model and was presumed to buffer the relationship between the hope dimensions and formal and informal help-seeking. Help-seeking history and personality traits were included as covariates. Results from a hierarchical regression analysis showed that the external locus-of-hope dimensions were associated with informal help-seeking, and that external-family locus-of-hope was associated with formal help-seeking. Self-stigma negatively predicted both formal and informal help-seeking. The present study provides an important insight that while self-stigma remains to inhibit individuals’ help-seeking intentions, external locus-of-hope dimensions serve as facilitators that can enable people to seek help, especially during adverse times such as a pandemic. Addressing self-stigma and increasing the Filipinos’ external locus-of-hope may provide a unique avenue for increasing help-seeking intentions, and by extension, lead to improved psychological well-being. Keywords: help-seeking, hope, locus-of-hope, self-stigma, positive psychology