IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v45y1999i2p104-116.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Help-Seeking Preference of College Students in Urban China After the Implementation of the "Open-Door" Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Kam Weng Boey

    (Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China)

Abstract

A sample of 466 college students (228 males, 238 females) in urban China completed a questionnaire to indicate their help-seeking preferences with respect to 8 types of problem. The results indicated that our subjects, particularly male students, preferred to rely on their own in resolving their problems, although this self-reliant tendency was less obvious for problems of future employment and severe psychological distress. When help was sought, the tendency to rely on parents was found to be stronger among females than males. Male students were more likely than their female counterparts to seek help from friends and psychiatric consultation. Nevertheless, there was still great reluctance among the college students to use mental health services, particularly psychiatric consultation. Lack of credibility of the professionals was a barrier more negative than stigmatization which prevented students from seeking psychiatric consultation. Moral rather than psychosocial attribution of psychiatric illness was most predictive of the tendency to use mental health services. Findings inconsistent with those reported in other Chinese communities are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Kam Weng Boey, 1999. "Help-Seeking Preference of College Students in Urban China After the Implementation of the "Open-Door" Policy," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 45(2), pages 104-116, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:45:y:1999:i:2:p:104-116
    DOI: 10.1177/002076409904500203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002076409904500203
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/002076409904500203?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rickwood, D. J. & Braithwaite, V. A., 1994. "Social-psychological factors affecting help-seeking for emotional problems," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 563-572, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Fu Keung Wong & Angus Yuk Kit Lam & Ada Poon & Amy Yin Man Chow, 2012. "Gender differences in mental health literacy among Chinese-speaking Australians in Melbourne, Australia," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 58(2), pages 178-185, March.
    2. Louise T. Higgins & Gareth Davey & Xiang Gao & Richang Zheng & Zijun Ni & Lijun Lang, 2008. "Counselling in China," Psychology and Developing Societies, , vol. 20(1), pages 99-109, January.
    3. Shengquan Ye & Terry Leung & Bong Mok, 2011. "Measuring Mutual Help Willingness and Criteria among Hong Kong People: Confirmatory Factor Analyses," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 103(1), pages 119-130, August.
    4. Cheung, Chau-kiu & Chan, Raymond Kwok-hong, 2008. "Facilitating achievement by social capital in Japan," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2261-2277, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ilyas Sagar-Ouriaghli & Emma Godfrey & Selina Graham & June S. L. Brown, 2020. "Improving Mental Health Help-Seeking Behaviours for Male Students: A Framework for Developing a Complex Intervention," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-34, July.
    2. Subin Park & Mina Jeon & Yeeun Lee & Young-Mi Ko & Chul Eung Kim, 2018. "Influencing factors of attitudes toward seeking professional help for mental illness among Korean adults," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 64(3), pages 286-292, May.
    3. Kaim, Zeev & Romi, Shlomo, 2015. "Adolescents at risk and their willingness to seek help from youth care workers," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 17-23.
    4. Amelia Gulliver & Taliah Wysoke & Alison L. Calear & Louise M. Farrer, 2022. "Factors Associated with Engagement in University Life, and Help Seeking Attitudes and Behaviour in First Year Undergraduate Students," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Siobhan M. Ryan & John W. Toumbourou & Anthony F. Jorm, 2014. "Factors Associated With Service Use for Young Adolescents With Mental Health Problems," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, November.
    6. Dong, Gang Nathan, 2016. "Social capital as correlate, antecedent, and consequence of health service demand in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 85-96.
    7. Tak, Hyo Jung & Hougham, Gavin W. & Ruhnke, Atsuko & Ruhnke, Gregory W., 2014. "The effect of in-office waiting time on physician visit frequency among working-age adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 43-51.
    8. Johnson, Emily & Menna, Rosanne, 2017. "Help seeking among adolescents in foster care: A qualitative study," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 92-99.
    9. Siobhan Jones & Alex Hassett & Irene Sclare, 2017. "Experiences of Engaging With Mental Health Services in 16- to 18-Year-Olds: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(3), pages 21582440177, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:45:y:1999:i:2:p:104-116. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.