Willingness to seek professional mental health service in three ethnic groups of Asian Americans

ABSTRACT

The study explored factors associated with willingness to seek professional mental health service in three ethnic groups of Asian Americans (Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipino). Mental health needs reduced the odds of having willingness to seek service in the Chinese sample. In the Vietnamese sample, the linkage between the presence of mental health needs and willingness to seek service was less likely when they had a higher level of the social network. Findings demonstrated similarities and differences between and within subgroups, providing both general and group-specific implications in bridging the gap between mental health needs and service use in Asian Americans.

KEYWORDS:

• Asian Americans
• attitudes toward mental health service
• mental health needs
• service use
• stigma
• willingness to seek mental health service

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Hyunwoo Yoon, PhD, received support from the Rutgers University Asian Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research Center under National Institute on Health (NIH)/National Institute on Aging (NIA) Grant P30-AG0059304. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH/NIA. The support for manuscript development was partly provided by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant (NRF-2016S1A3A2925399).