Association of Gender and Family Type of College Students of South India with Help-seeking Behaviour Regarding Mental Illness

Background: People seek-help for mental health issues from variety of sources such as the family physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, traditional faith-healers, or alternative medicine practitioners. Evidence shows very few young people in India seek support for mental health problems, compared to other countries. Thus, this study aimed at identifying associated factors of help-seeking behavior of engineering college students. Data & Methods: A cross-sectional study was applied and information regarding help-seeking behaviour was collected from 1140 college students of two engineering colleges of Vellore via self-administered General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ). Data was collected from January to February 2019 and total enumeration sampling technique was used. Ethical approval was taken prior to collection of data and ethical principles were abided through the study. Descriptive and inferential analysis were done. Results: The majority of students preferred their parents for both personal/emotional problems (68.1%) and suicidal thoughts (52.9%) over other help sources. Intimate partner (47.1%) and doctor (30.7%) were the next choices of help. However, when they experienced suicidal thoughts, their preferences were for intimate partner (48.2%) followed by friends (38.5%). Mental health professionals were least preferred source. Few help sources were significantly associated with gender and type of family of students.Conclusions Engineering college students seek-help from various sources where more than half preferred their parents, yet Mental Health Professionals were not their priority choice to seek-help. Therefore, it is important to sensitize young people including their family members and college to seek-help from Mental Health Professional for serious issues like suicidal ideation.