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College Students' Intentions to Seek Help for Suicidal Ideation: Accounting for the Help‐Negation Effect
Author(s) -
Yakunina Elena S.,
Rogers James R.,
Waehler Charles A.,
Werth James L.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1521/suli.2010.40.5.438
Subject(s) - negation , psychology , mediation , distress , suicidal ideation , stigma (botany) , perception , clinical psychology , help seeking , social support , social psychology , medicine , human factors and ergonomics , poison control , psychiatry , mental health , medical emergency , neuroscience , computer science , political science , law , programming language
Prior research has identified a negative association between suicidal ideation and help‐seeking, a phenomenon called “help‐negation.” Help‐negation has been documented to occur for both professional and nonprofessional sources of help. In this study help‐seeking attitudes, stigma concerns, and perceptions of social support were examined as possible mediators of help‐negation. Data were collected from a nonclinical sample of college undergraduates at a midwestern university ( N = 321). Findings provided partial support for the mediation hypotheses. Help‐seeking attitudes and stigma were significant predictors of help‐seeking intentions (β = .34 and β = ‐.17, p < .05, respectively), but did not mediate help‐negation for professional sources. Perceptions of social support, on the other hand, fully mediated help‐negation for nonprofessional sources (β = .27, p < .05).