Williamson, Emma and Perez Algorta, Guillermo and Fletcher, Ian (2016) Does professional language affect help seeking in young people? : A randomised study. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
This thesis comprises of a literature review, a research report and a critical appraisal. The overall focus is on factors that affect whether young people seek help for mental health problems. The systematic review assessed whether mental health literacy interventions delivered to children and young people in education settings improved knowledge, attitudes and help seeking. Seven studies reported significant improvements in knowledge, six reported significant improvements in attitudes and three reported significant improvements in help seeking. Appraisal of quality rated two of the nine studies as moderate and seven papers as weak. The quality and reporting standards limited the generalisability of the majority of the findings and it remains unclear whether mental health literacy interventions delivered in education settings to young people are effective. The research study used a cross sectional, online, experimental design and regression analyses to explore whether the language used by professionals to describe mental health problems affects young people’s help seeking intentions. Participants were randomly allocated to conditions and presented with a video clip vignette of either psychiatric language or lay language. The vignette conditions did not directly affect help seeking intentions. Past experience and perceived helpfulness of previous mental health care significantly predicted an increase in help seeking intentions. An interaction effect was also observed where psychiatric language predicted higher help seeking intentions in young people who had past experience of mental health care and lay language predicted higher help seeking intentions in young people who had not. This effect was at a borderline level of statistical significance. Implications for practice and research are discussed and future research to confirm or disprove this interaction is recommended. The critical appraisal extends the discussion from the research paper with a focus on research methodology, how research is presented and theoretical models.