Youth Experiences of Mental Health Stigma

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Prevention and Interventions

Abstract

Introduction: Despite the high prevalence of clinically significant mental health concerns among youth, adolescents and young adults are unlikely to seek mental health care (Blanco et al., 2008; Merikangas et al., 2011). While there are a range of factors that contribute to low rates of psychological help-seeking, mental health stigma is a large barrier to youth accessing mental health care (e.g., Lindsey et al., 2013). The current study seeks to understand youth’s experiences of mental health stigma in a large-scale national sample in order to better inform anti-stigma and psychological help-seeking interventions.

Methods: Participants were 705 youth from the National MyVoice Text Message Cohort, a mixed methods text message poll. Participants were 59.5% cisgender female, 33.8% cisgender male, and 6.7% transgender and non-binary, with a mean age of 18.49 years (SD = 2.85). Youth were from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds (13.5% Asian, 9.5% Black, 10.2% Latinx, 9.9% Multiracial/Multiethnic, 56.2% White, and 0.7% Other). Participants were asked five open-ended probes about their experience of mental health stigma, including the sources of stigma, barriers to help-seeking, and the role youth and adults should play in reducing stigma. Thematic analysis was used to derive codes and then themes, and logistic regressions were used to examine variation in themes across demographic characteristics.

Results: Thematic analysis resulted in four themes that described youth’s experiences of mental health stigma. First, the many youth observed that mental health literacy was lacking for youth and adults in their lives and greater mental health literacy was needed to combat stigma. Second, youth’s attitudes towards mental health existed on a continuum from a desire for increased normalization to a desire for increased privacy and secrecy. Specifically, while some youth called for more open conversations, others shared mixed feelings, and a small portion of youth preferred increased privacy in accessing mental health services due to feeling unsafe sharing mental health issues. Third, youth generally described a culture of shame and judgement surrounding mental health and highlighted the need for an inclusive, supportive environment. Finally, although youth endorsed experiencing mental health stigma from other youth and from adults at similar rates, many described how stigma from caregivers can have larger impacts due to adults’ ability to gatekeep youth’s access to mental health care. Subgroup comparisons revealed statistically significant variation in endorsement of all themes based on participant gender, while older youth were significantly more likely to endorse the need for mental health literacy and normalization, and Asian youth were significantly more likely to call for mental health literacy.

Discussion: Youth in our study described a desire for support and normalization of mental health. They also called for education, both for themselves and adults, in order to decrease mental health stigma. Youth’s attention to the disparate impacts of adult versus peer stigma points to the need for anti-stigma interventions to target caregivers in addition to youth themselves. Finally, variations by gender, age, and race highlight how mental health stigma varies across developmental stage and is impacted by gender and racial/ethnic socialization.

Authors

• Laura Austin, Suffolk University
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca Browne, Suffolk University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Megan Carreiro, Suffolk University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ivana Khreizat, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa DeJonckheere, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Schwartz, Suffolk University
  Non-Presenting Author