Potential Factors That Can Model the Attitude Towards Psychotherapy Among Students – An Analysis of a University in Serbia

For psychotherapy practice, it has always been important to research what motivates or demotivates individuals to seek and use it. Therefore, our goal was to determine the attitudes of students at the State University of Novi Pazar towards psychotherapy, while understanding potential differences in attitudes between humanities and non- humanities students. Attitudes were measured using the Psychotherapy Scale, and general data were collected using a sociodemographic questionnaire. The sample consisted of 322 students from 16 study programs. The findings showed that the attitudes towards psychotherapy in our sample are distributed across four components: positive attitude, negative attitude, scepticism and hesitation in seeking psychotherapy services. Students of all study programs are equally reluctant to seek professional help, while positive, negative and sceptical attitudes towards psychotherapy significantly differentiate between humanities and non-humanities students. Additionally, female respondents have significantly higher positive attitude and hesitance towards therapy, as well as significantly lower scores for negative attitude and scepticism towards therapy.