Mental Health Stigma and Help-Seeking: A Moderated Regression Analysis of Attachment Styles

Abstract

The stigma is a very important obstacle to a psychological rescue and is an obvious excuse, which engulfs individuals in an attempt to obtain a professional help. In general, although the role of stigma is thoroughly studied, little has been done to investigate the individual difference in the nature of functioning of emotions and interpersonal relationships or even the issue of attachment styles. The paper has covered the relationship between the moderating role of the attachment anxiety to the mental health stigma and the help-seeking behaviour. The paper is regarding the impact of the internal relational schema of the people on their attitude to seek support with stigmatising attitude. The sample of 300 students of the university who had to take the standardised test of their attitudes to the mental health stigma, attitudes to the style of attachment (with the emphasis on the attachment anxiety) and attitudes to professional help was surveyed. The moderate indices of stigmatization in making a help seeking behavior was regressed through a regression analysis that involved the use of a PROCESS macro (Model 1) that revealed that the negative stigma effect on a help seeking behavior was stronger with an increase in the level of attachment anxiety. This was most paramount among the individuals that were highly attached in the aspect of anxiety. The other negative effect of stigma was noted among individuals who had greater levels of attachment anxiety and the desire to receive help was taken into account. The implications of such findings include the outstanding high attachment styles between individuals in the area of mental health stigma.