Work in Progress: Measuring Stigma of Mental Health Conditions and Its Impact in Help-seeking Behaviors Among Engineering Students

In this work in progress we explore the relationship between stigma of mental health conditions (MHC) and help-seeking behaviors among engineering students. The prevalence of mental health conditions among college students has been increasing during the last decades and it will only be heightened by the challenges currently faced in our society. Nevertheless, it has been documented that college students have multiple challenges to seek help for their mental health conditions when they arise. Furthermore, it is known that engineering students are less likely to seek help than students in other fields when in such circumstances. Stigma of mental health conditions is a persistent societal challenge that deter people from seeking help when needed. Given the characteristics known about the engineering students' population and the engineering culture of high-stress and enduring that has been consciously or unconsciously promoted in the engineering field, we hypothesize a relationship between stigma about mental illness and the proclivity of engineering students to seek help for such conditions. This work explores the relationship between stigma of mental illness and help-seeking behaviors of engineering students using responses from an online survey from 79 students at two institutions. Results show a negative correlation that suggest that higher general stigma levels are associated with lower help-seeking behaviors. In addition, engineering-specific stigma was slightly correlated with help-seeking behaviors. This is part of an ongoing research line aiming to characterize the dynamics of engineering culture and wellbeing through multiple quantitative and qualitative approaches. Insights from this research will support a better understanding of the prevalence of stigma in the field and a comparison against the general population as well as the assessment of resources available to students to address their mental health challenges.