An Exploration of Help-seeking Behaviours in Female Hispanic Adolescents

This study of 693 female adolescents, aged 12 to 20 years, describes the formal and informal helpseeking behaviors of Hispanic subjects, examines demographic and psychosocial correlates of those behaviors, and identifies differences in help-seeking behaviors between female Hispanic and adolescents of four other ethnic groups. The majority of subjects reported seeking help more frequently from informal rather than formal resources and there were significant relationships between psychosocial factors and informal help-seeking. There were significant differences by ethnicity in seeking help from peers and in the number of problems for which subjects would go to peers first for help.