Help seeking behaviour of Asian adolescents with depression : cognitive and cultural perspectives.

• Main Authors: Ong, Soo Boon., Tan, Wen., Tan, Gina Wei Ling.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51857
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Many studies found low rates of help seeking for adolescents with depression, especially Asians, leading to underutilisation of mental health services. This literature review uses Cauce et al’s help seeking process model as the framework to help understand the process of adolescents’ help seeking. The review highlights some limitations of the process model in the context of Asian adolescents with depression, thus proposing cultural and cognitive perspectives to address the gap. Cognitive theories are discussed to address the context of depression in help seeking behaviours. Depressive symptoms are found to impede help seeking in general, accounted for by attribution and hopelessness theories. Cultural factors are discussed to account for the cultural differences in help seeking behaviours for Asian adolescents. Asians are found to be susceptible to stigma associated with depression due to face, thus reducing help seeking rates. Other factors include differences in self-esteem and cultural values. Implications, suggestions for more effective interventions to encourage help seeking and possible future research directions are presented.