Perceived Stigma and Barriers to Care for Psychological Treatment: Implications for Reactions to Stressors in Different Contexts

Two studies examined how perceiving a stigma and barriers to care for psychological treatment moderate the relationships between stressors and psychological symptoms. One study utilized a sample of college students and the other a sample of U.S. Army soldiers. Factor analytic results from the two samples supported stigma and barriers to care being separate constructs. In the student sample, perceived stigma interacted with subjective stress to predict depression, such that the relationship between stress and depression was stronger when perceived stigma was high. In the military sample, barriers to care interacted with work overload to predict depression, such that the relationship between overload and depression was stronger when perceived barriers to care were high. Results reveal the importance of examining both stigma and barriers to care as moderators of the stressor–strain relationship, and reinforce the need to develop interventions to address stigma and remove barriers to care.