The Use of Online Counselling Platform among Youth: The Interrelationship among Attitude, Self-Stigma, and Intentions Explained

Abstract

Previous literature has shown that online counseling can be ethically provided and might have effective outcomes. However, the context surrounding online counseling application is still debatable, with limited research has been done in examining the use of online counseling. Using Ajzen's theory of planned behavior as a framework, this study investigated several factors associated with the youth intention to use online counseling. These factors are attitude toward online counseling and self-stigma of seeking help. We also seek the influence of demographic attributes of the youth to their intentions to use online counseling. Gathered through online survey, analysis is conducted from 394 youth (M age = 20.85) in Jakarta coming from both college students and workers. Results indicated that both attitude toward online counseling and self-stigma of seeking help could predict youth intention to seek help from online counseling. In addition, we found that the youth's gender, rating of perceived emotional condition, and experience of online counseling played a role in their predisposition toward online counseling, while age and socioeconomic status did not. Discussion and limitation are all listed.