IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v66y2020i2p105-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What gets in the way? Men’s perspectives of barriers to mental health services

Author

Listed:
  • Zac E Seidler
  • Simon M Rice
  • David Kealy
  • John L Oliffe
  • John S Ogrodniczuk

Abstract

Background: This study describes barriers to accessing mental health services among men currently experiencing a mental health concern. Methods: Mental health help-seeking survey data from 778 male respondents who self-reported experiencing a mental health concern were analyzed. Results: Of these men, 65% ( n  = 513) wanted treatment and 35% ( n  = 265) did not want treatment. The most frequently endorsed barriers to mental health treatment were believing that a lot of people feel sad and down (80%; n  = 620), not knowing what to look for in a psychotherapist (counselor; 80%; n  = 618) and needing to solve one’s own problems (73%; n  = 569). Compared with men who wanted help for their mental health concern, those men who did not want help were significantly more likely to be unsure if psychotherapy (counseling) really works or is effective, not tell their physician if they were feeling down or depressed and prefer to solve their own problems. Conclusions: The high endorsement of both structural (e.g., cost) and attitudinal (e.g., beliefs) barriers by respondents suggests that service delivery must adapt to better respond to dominant masculine ideals while also improving men’s ease of access into a transparent treatment process.

Suggested Citation

  • Zac E Seidler & Simon M Rice & David Kealy & John L Oliffe & John S Ogrodniczuk, 2020. "What gets in the way? Men’s perspectives of barriers to mental health services," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 66(2), pages 105-110, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:66:y:2020:i:2:p:105-110
    DOI: 10.1177/0020764019886336
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764019886336
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0020764019886336?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Laura Hofmann & Birgit Wagner, 2023. "Men’s Behavior and Communication in the Days Prior to a Suicide—A Psychological Autopsy Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(17), pages 1-12, August.

    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:66:y:2020:i:2:p:105-110. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.