Intention to seek professional and non-professional emotional help among young Jewish adults: The contribution of perceptions, attitudes and cultural-religious variables

Young adulthood (between 18 and 30 years) is a time in which important life choices and significant transitions are made. These changes may lead to the development of mental crises. Accordingly, studies have found that most mental disorders emerge in those ages; however, although young adults experiencing mental distress are at high risk, they often avoid turning to professional help, tend to rely on themselves, and are more inclined to seek non-professional help.

The help-seeking process is complex, and various factors affect the decision to turn to treatment. The literature describes two main types of mental health help: professional, and non-professional. Professional help is help offered by mental health professionals. Non-professional help is the mental health help offered by those who have not been trained professionally, such as one's family, friends, religious leaders, community, and alternative medicine practitioners.

The purpose of the present study was to examine factors associated with intention to seek both professional and non-professional help based on the Mental Health Help-Seeking Model (Vogel et al., 2005; Vogel et al., 2006). This model suggests that a person's subjective perceptions ('self-perception') of the possible outcome of their seeking professional help will affect their intention to seek it both directly as well as via the mediation of their subjective attitudes towards seeking professional mental health help. The model also suggests that the intention to seek help may vary among people from different backgrounds. The present study examined the association between self-perception variables (self-stigma, expected risk, expected benefit, and perceived social support), religious-cultural variables (religiosity: religious identity; relation towards religious authority; spirituality associated religion, and general spirituality), and background variables (age, gender, and prior mental health treatment), and the intention to seek both professional and non-professional mental health help. In addition, based on the Mental Health Help-Seeking Model, the mediating role of attitudes was examined as well. Finally, the differences in intention to seek professional or non- professional mental health help and the level of self-stigma among respondents from different religious identities were also explored.

In this cross-sectional study, 282 young adults aged 18 to 30 Filled out self-report questionnaires manually or on the web.

As hypothesized, the findings showed a significant negative correlation between self-stigma and the intention to seek professional mental health help, as well as a significant positive correlation between expected benefit and the intention to seek professional mental health help. Contrary to the study hypothesis, expected risk, perceived social support, religiosity, and general spirituality were not associated with respondents' intention to seek professional mental health help. Moreover, the study indicated that among respondents who were older and had been treated previously by a mental health professional there was higher intention to seek professional mental health help.

In addition, attitudes toward seeking mental health treatment were found to partially mediate the association between self-stigma and expected benefit, and one's intention to seek professional mental health help. Contrary to the study hypothesis, however, no mediation of attitudes was found between expected risk, perceived social support, religiosity and general spirituality, and intention to seek professional mental health help.

Furthermore, a negative and significant association was found between expected risk and intention to seek non-professional mental health help, as well as a positive and significant correlation between expected benefit and perceived social support, and intention to seek such help. Self-stigma, religiosity and general spirituality were not found to be associated with intention to seek non-professional mental health help. Additionally, there was a nearly significant negative association between age and intention to seek non-professional mental health help.

Moreover, contrary to the study hypothesis, no differences were found between the various religious groups in self-stigma or intention to seek professional or non-professional mental health help. Furthermore, religion-associated spirituality and general spirituality were found to have a positive link to the intention to seek rabbinical counselling.

The study findings reveal the important contribution of self-stigma, expected benefit and attitudes to explaining intention to seek professional mental health help; and the role played by expected risk, expected benefit, and perceived social support in explaining one's intention to seek non-professional mental health help. As for religiosity variables, the study indicates that, with the exception of the intention to seek rabbinical counselling, religiosity had no effect on respondents' intention to seek help. Meaning that despite respondents' varied religious characteristics, self-perception was far more significant than religiosity in explaining intention to seek professional or non-professional mental health help. There may be, however, other dimensions of religiosity associated with one's intention to seek mental health help that should be further investigated.

On a practical level, the study indicates the importance of developing intervention programs for young adults in Israel to enhance positive attitudes towards professional mental health help, reduce self-stigma among those seeking it, raise the expected benefit of being treated by professional mental health practitioners, reduce the expected risk of seeking mental health help, and boost social support. It is further important to continue with and perhaps bolster current collaborations between mental healthcare professionals and rabbis.