Help-Seeking Measures and Their Use in Adolescents: A Systematic Review
Open accessAbstract
Despite increasing numbers of adolescents experiencing poor mental wellbeing, adolescents are often reluctant to seek help for mental health problems. In response, there is increasing interest in the development of evidence-based interventions to increase help-seeking behavior. However, the evidence base may lack validity if help-seeking measures used in adolescent research contain age-inappropriate language or content such as seeking help from a spouse; no previous review has assessed this. A review of adolescent mental health help-seeking research was conducted to identify help-seeking measures used, assess their psychometric properties and linguistic appropriateness in adolescent populations, and organize measures by facet of help-seeking for ease of future use. We found 14 help-seeking measures used in adolescent research, but only 17/72 (24%) studies found used one of the identified measures. Help-seeking measures identified were categorized into one of four help-seeking facets: attitudes toward help-seeking, intentions to seek help, treatment fears regarding help-seeking, and barriers to help-seeking. The content and language of measures were deemed appropriate for all but one help-seeking measure. Recommendations for future research include greater utilization of identified measures, particularly in researching help-seeking behavior in different cultures, subcultures and between stages of adolescence.
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Previous studies suggest that teens who are most in need are less likely to seek help.
“This is in line with previous studies suggesting that teens who are most in need are less likely to seek help [1, 11, 15].”
From What are the barriers, facilitators and interventions targeting help-seeking behaviours for common mental health problems in adolescents? A systematic review (2020) · cites this paper as [11]
The Introduction reports that only one-third of adolescents meeting diagnostic criteria seek professional help and that adolescents with serious, debilitating difficulties may still avoid or delay seeking help. It does not establish that teens with the greatest need are less likely to seek help than other teens. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe primary reason for adolescents with mental health problems not being in contact with services is reluctance to seek help.
“the primary reason being reluctance to seek help [1, 10, 11].”
From What are the barriers, facilitators and interventions targeting help-seeking behaviours for common mental health problems in adolescents? A systematic review (2020) · cites this paper as [11]
The Introduction (page not provided) says that only one-third of adolescents meeting diagnostic criteria seek professional help and that some avoid or delay seeking it. It describes barriers to help-seeking, but does not establish reluctance as the primary reason adolescents are not in contact with services. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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Aguirre Velasco, A., Cruz, I. S. S., Billings, J., Jimenez, M., & Rowe, S. (2020) · BMC Psychiatry · doi:10.1186/s12888-020-02659-0 · Cited by 736 · see citing works
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Divin, N., Harper, P., Curran, E., Corry, D., & Leavey, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Ulster (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Divin, Natalie
- Venue
- Adolescent Research Review
- Published
- 2018-01-17
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 113-122
- ISSN
- 2363-8346 (ISSN-L)
- 2363-8354
- OpenAlex
- W2783660658
- Cited by
- 83
- References
- 66
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 1.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Adolescent Research Review (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
- Keywords
- help-seeking, adolescents, psychometric properties, linguistic appropriateness, help-seeking attitudes, help-seeking barriers, adolescent mental health
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