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Perceived Norms and Mental Health Help Seeking among African American College Students

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Abstract

In general, African Americans do not seek mental health treatment from formal sources at the same rates as Caucasians. The present study examined whether culturally relevant factors (i.e., perceived negative peer and family norms about help seeking) influence help-seeking intentions in a late adolescent African-American sample (n = 219) and whether there is a gender difference in the predictive strength between peer and family norms. Participants were primarily female (n = 144). Multiple regressions were implemented to explore the relationship between perceived norms and help-seeking intentions. Analyses revealed that males had higher perceived peer norms, and family norms were a stronger predictor of intentions than peer norms for females. Individually, peer norms and family norms were related to help-seeking intentions. When perceived norms were analyzed together, only negative family norms were related to intentions. Findings suggest that incorporating family norms is critical when developing interventions to increase formal service utilization among African Americans.

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Notes

  1. Multivariate analyses include age and gender as covariates, given the significant relationship between these variables and negative peer norms.

  2. Help-seeking intentions for psychological and substance use concerns combined was used as the outcome for these analyses.

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Acknowledgment

The authors wish to acknowledge and thank Sharon Lambert, Ph.D., Susan dosReis, Ph.D., and Melissa Azur, Ph.D. for their valuable feedback on earlier versions of this work.

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  1. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N. Broadway, Hampton House 808, Baltimore, MD, 21202, USA

    Crystal L. Barksdale PhD

  2. Psychology Department, George Washington University, 2125 G Street, NW Washington, DC, 20052, USA

    Sherry D. Molock PhD, MDiv

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  1. Crystal L. Barksdale PhD
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  2. Sherry D. Molock PhD, MDiv
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Correspondence to Crystal L. Barksdale PhD.

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Barksdale, C.L., Molock, S.D. Perceived Norms and Mental Health Help Seeking among African American College Students. J Behav Health Serv Res 36, 285–299 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-008-9138-y

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