Mental illnesses are common in people, but many do not seek help (Wright, Jorm, & Mackinnon , 2011), despite the availability of evidence-based treatments ( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999). Mental illness stigma is the main obstacle to the provision of care of people with mental illnesses (Sartorius, 2007). Therefore, people with mental illnesses need to cope with two complications; one is their symptom of diseases and the other one is stigma related to mental illnesses. Public attitudes against people with mental illness are harmful (Feldman & Crandall, 2007; Yoshioka , Reavley , MacKinnon , & Jorm , 2014) as well as discriminative (Pescosolido, 2013; Angermeyer & Matschinger, 2005; Mustillo, Budd , & Hendrix , 2013; Lucas …show more content…
There are several models, which are somewhat different from each other. Help seeking models for mental health problems explain the factors that influence on help seeking behavior, personal attitudes and beliefs about mental illness influence for help seeking behavior. Help seeking models generally describe help seeking as interrelated behaviors, individuals experience about health problem, perceived need for professional help, costs and benefits evaluation, social belief about seeking help, and finally take action to obtain help for mental health …show more content…
It may be gaining help in terms of advice, information, treatment, or any other support. Help can be sought either through formal or informal sources. Formal help seeking may be professional forms of help such as from counselors; psychiatric etc. and informal help seeking is social relationships such as friends, family members. Nowadays, social media, internet also play a vital role in help seeking behavior. When people experience a mental health issue and identify a need for help they evaluate the costs and benefits of receiving treatments. Then they take decisions to receive help for their mental health problems or not. When they analysis the cost and benefits they consider the beliefs and attitudes against mental health problems in the society too. Stigma related to mental illnesses is one of the main factors that influence for help seeking behavior of mental health problems (Hogan, 2003). Jones et al. (1984) define stigma as ‘a mark that sets a person apart and links the marked person to undesirable characteristics’. The term stigma can be defined as a harmful attribute towards mental health consumer (Feldman & Crandall, 2007). Stigma has two main distinct forms; public stigma and self-stigma. Public stigma measures the views of general public towards mentally ill people whereas self-stigma measures the self-attitudes towards people with mental