Main Article Content
Abstract
Mental health service utilization remains low in the Philippines despite high rates of psychological distress and recent legislative reforms; and understanding individual and cultural determinants of help-seeking is seen as critical. This cross-sectional study investigated the influence of personality factors on attitudes toward seeking mental health services among Filipino adults. Using standardized measures, data were collected from 294 Filipino respondents. Descriptive analysis revealed personality trait profiles with high Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, and low Neuroticism which indicate a generally positive orientation toward seeking professional psychological help and less stigmatized approach to seeking mental health support. In addition, correlation analysis revealed that conscientiousness (r =. 155, p < .001) and extraversion (r = .128, p < .05) are positively associated with psychological openness and help-seeking propensity attitudes respectively; conscientiousness (r=.131, p<.05) is positively associated with indifference to stigma; while neuroticism (r = -.209, p < .001; r = -.128, p < .05) was negatively associated with psychological openness and indifference to stigma. Personality traits of conscientiousness and extraversion serve as facilitating factors for psychological openness and help-seeking propensity, while neuroticism consistently acts as a barrier, diminishing openness and imposing sensitivity to stigma. The results serve as a basis in recommending culturally sensitive interventions that address both internal and systemic barriers to improve mental health service utilization in the Filipino context.
Keywords
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with INSPIRA: Indonesian Journal of Psychological Research agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC 4.0, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the authors' work non-commercially, and although the others' new works must also acknowledge the authors and be non-commercial, they do not have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). In other words, authors can archive pre-print (submitted version), post-print (accepted version), and publisher's version/PDF.
References
- a