The Relationship between Social Support and Professional Help-seeking Attitudes among Older Adults: The Mediating Effects of Mental Health Literacy

Older adults tend to be reluctant to seek professional help even if they have mental health problems. Therefore, this study examined the help-seeking attitudes of older adults regarding the use of mental health services, and also aimed to confirm the effects of mental health literacy and social support on the attitudes and the mediating effect of the literacy. The study participants were 300 older adults aged between 65 and 83 years, all of them were members of an online research panel company. They were measured for levels of the mental health literacy, help-seeking attitudes, and social support, and the primary methods of data analysis were structural equation modeling and mediation effect analysis. The major findings were that the social support influenced the mental health literacy but not the help-seeking attitudes. The mental health literacy was found to mediate the relationship between social support and help-seeking attitudes. The findings imply that older adults need a high level of mental health literacy in order to actively seek professional help when experiencing mental health problems, and that social support would play an important role in enhancing the level of literacy. Based on the findings, the study discusses the need for encouraging older adults to interact with acquaintances who have a high level of mental health literacy as well as the need for literacy enhancement programs targeting caregivers or family members who can serve as social supporters for the adults, to facilitate the utilization of mental health services.