Mental Illness Stigma and Help‐Seeking Attitudes of Students With Immigrant Parents

Abstract

This study examined the relations among mental illness stigma, parent‐child communication about mental health concerns, parent‐child acculturation gap, and attitudes toward seeking professional services of college students from immigrant families. Findings from 219 participants indicated significant direct and indirect effects of stigma on negative help‐seeking attitudes and supported the moderator effect of the acculturation gap. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed from the cultural contexts faced by college students with immigrant parents.

Depression, gender, and help-seeking among Arab/Middle Eastern North African (MENA) Americans: The role of enculturation.

“…Contrary to our hypothesis, acculturation was not a significant predictor in this model. However, acculturation has been found to be positively related with help-seeking in the extant empirical and theoretical literature (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2016; Balesh et al, 2018; Bismar & Wang, 2021). The lack of statistical significance may signal that other pertinent variables were not assessed in the present study.…”

“…Much of the theoretical literature on Arab/MENA help-seeking has implicated acculturation to be a positive predictor of help-seeking attitudes (Balesh et al, 2018). For example, Al-Krenawi and Graham (2016) discuss how adaptation to the United States, which has less stigmatizing mental health attitudes compared to countries in the Arab/MENA region (e.g., Bismar & Wang, 2021; Tikkanen et al, 2020), may predict more positive help-seeking attitudes.…”

Asian Americans’ intention to seek help: The mediating influence of self-stigma on the theory of planned behavior.

“…For instance, the intrapersonal-interpersonal-sociocultural framework (J. E. Kim & Zane, 2016) highlights the underutilization of mental health services by Asian Americans, linking it to sociocultural factors like the perpetual foreigner stereotype, which hinders motivation and comfort in seeking help (Devos & Banaji, 2005;Huynh et al, 2011;Leong & Lau, 2001). The emphasis on maintaining harmonious relationships and conforming to societal norms in Asian culture leads to disapproval of deviations from the norm (Abdullah & Brown, 2011;Bismar & Wang, 2021). Consequently, Asian Americans may express depression through psychosomatic symptoms, aligning with cultural values like emotional self-control but inadvertently compromising perceived behavioral control (Chun et al, 1996;Kim et al, 2005;Kim & Lee, 2014; J. E. Kim & Zane, 2016;Le Meyer et al, 2009).…”

Helping General Education Teachers Integrate Trauma-Informed Practices with English Learners

“…Schools are often the first and only place that an EL's mental health will be addressed. Although much of this work has been done at the college level, many researchers have found that students from immigrant families are much less likely to seek out mental health services than their peers from non-immigrant families (Bismar & Wang, 2021;Vogel et al, 2006). This is a complex, complicated issue, but in most cases, schools are the first place where mental health could potentially be addressed.…”