Correlational study identifies links between social stigma, parental support, and help-seeking intentions in young adults, suggesting a need for targeted interventions.
The present research focused on social stigma, perceived parental support, and help-seeking intentions among young adults. Based on a correlational research design, data were gathered from 100 university students aged between 18 and 24 years using standardised tools such as the Attribution Questionnaire-9 (AQ-9), Perceived Parental Autonomy Support Scale (P-PASS), and the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ). The results indicated that social stigma was inversely related to both perceived parental support and help-seeking intentions, which means that increased stigma lowers perceptions of parental support and prevents individuals from seeking assistance. However, perceived parental support was positively related to help-seeking intentions, which emphasises the importance of supportive family processes in facilitating help-seeking behaviour. These findings strengthen the implicated relationships between societal and familial processes with respect to mental health outcomes. The research highlights the importance of interventions that address stigma reduction as well as parental support concurrently to build a support environment for young adults. The limitations of the research are its correlational nature and sample limitations, and it is recommended that future studies take a longitudinal or experimental design to determine causal effects and enhance generalizability.
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Touseef et al. (2025) studied this question.
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