Teachers’ help-seeking stigma and attitudes toward referring students for help

Teachers play a pivotal role in identifying psychological difficulties in students and making timely referrals for professional help, which is crucial for promoting student mental health. This gatekeeping function is particularly important in education systems, such as that in Hong Kong, where teachers are actively involved in school guidance and counseling activities. However, traditional teacher training often focuses on mental health knowledge and basic helping skills, with less emphasis on teachers’ attitudes toward help-seeking and referring students. In this study, 291 secondary school teachers from Hong Kong completed measures of help-seeking stigma, attitudes toward referring students, and referral intentions using standardized scenarios. The results showed that teachers with lower help-seeking stigma hold more favorable views about referrals, including lower projected stigma, less emphasis on independent problem-solving in students, higher perceived helpfulness of mental health professionals, and greater willingness to dedicate actions to facilitate referrals. Greater willingness to dedicate actions to facilitate referrals, in turn, predicted greater intention to refer students even after accounting for the perceived severity of student problems. In addition, teachers who had previously received counseling had lower help-seeking stigma. These findings highlight how teachers’ views and personal experiences with help-seeking influence their attitudes and intentions toward referring students, underscoring the need for targeted school mental health training that addresses these factors.