Memorable Messages from Family Members About Mental Health: Young Adult Perceptions of Relational Closeness, Message Satisfaction, and Clinical Help-Seeking Attitudes

ABSTRACT

This study investigates memorable messages about mental health that young adults (YAs) recall receiving from family members. A memorable messages conceptual framework is adopted to explore message types and their associations with relevant individual and relational outcomes. Findings from a study of 193 memorable messages about mental health revealed three types of messages about mental health transmitted by family members: strategizing, normalizing, and minimizing messages. Statistical analyses indicated that memorable message types were significantly related to YA satisfaction with the message, perceptions of relational closeness between the message source and the YA message recipient, and YA attitudes about mental-health help seeking. Overall, participants who reported minimizing messages about mental health also reported the least favorable outcomes on the set of dependent variables. Implications of these findings and future directions for research are discussed.

Acknowledgments

The author extends sincere thanks to Lingzi Zhong and Emily Van Duyn for their assistance and to Erin Donovan for her invaluable feedback.

Notes

¹ Supplementary information about gender differences is available from the corresponding author.

² Supplementary information about differences between broad ethnic groups represented by this sample is available from the corresponding author.