Collegian help seeking: the role of self-compassion and self-coldness

Abstract

Background

Researchers have identified a two-factor structure of self-compassion (i.e. self-compassion and self-coldness). To date, no research has examined each of these constructs’ role in collegian professional help-seeking intention.

Aim

The current study sought to assess the role of self-compassion and self-coldness in collegian professional help-seeking intention, accounting for other theoretically and empirically-supported help-seeking constructs.

Method

Participants included 9349 collegians recruited as part of the national 2015–2016 Healthy Minds Study archival dataset. A logistic regression was conducted to examine the unique contributions of self-compassion and self-coldness in predicting professional help-seeking intention, controlling for key help-seeking variables.

Results

A test of the full model against a constant only model was statistically significant, which indicated that the predictors collectively distinguished between collegians who intended to seek help from a professional clinician compared to those who did not. The Wald criterion indicated that both self-compassion and self-coldness were uniquely associated with intention to seek professional help. Self-compassion increased and self-coldness decreased the probability of seeking professional help.

Conclusions

The study highlights the importance of self-compassion and self-coldness in collegian help-seeking intention. These findings can inform specific outreach efforts targeting both self-compassion and self-coldness.

Keywords:

• Self-compassion
• self-coldness
• help-seeking
• stigma
• college
• health services
• intention
• mental health

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude towards everyone involved with the Healthy Minds Network for the collection and dissemination of the participant data involved in this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.