The influence of contact with mental health services on carers’ help-seeking attitudes: contribution of stigma and affective state

Objective: Involving family members and friends in the treatment of mental illness has gained momentum in recent years and forms part of recommended practice. Despite this, little is known about the impact of this collaboration on the mental health stigma and help-seeking attitudes of family members or friends of people with a mental illness. Family member and friend stigma and aversion to help-seeking could potentially have a detrimental impact on the consumer. The first portion of this thesis critically reviews the literature surrounding mental health stigma, help-seeking behaviour and barriers, and the involvement of family members and friends. The second portion reports on a preliminary study investigating an identified gap in the literature: the impact of family member or friends experiences with mental health services on help-seeking, stigma, and affective state. Method: Fifty-nine self-identified family members or friends of individuals with a mental illness completed an online survey. Data included demographic questions about themselves, the consumer of mental health services and their experience with services, as well as measures of stigma, help-seeking attitudes and affective state. Results: Correlation analyses revealed significant relationships between experiences of mental health services and stigma, help-seeking attitudes and affective state. Family members or friends who reported negative experiences accessing mental health services on behalf of their consumer showed reduced help-seeking attitudes. Mediation analyses revealed that both stigma and affective state independently significantly reduced the association between positive experiences of services and more positive help-seeking attitudes. When all three variables were included in the same regression model, predicting help-seeking attitudes, stigma was the only significant contributor to the model. Conclusions: Results emphasise the importance of mental health services establishing positive engagement with carers of consumers in mental health treatment, as this contributes to more positive attitudes towards help-seeking. It is possible that stigma mediates this relationship, with negative experiences of services exacerbating mental health stigma in carers. These preliminary findings provide direction for future research, clinical practice, and service delivery. It is highly likely that building positive interactions between mental health services and carers will facilitate better access to care for consumers and improve clinical outcomes.