Improving Mental Health Help-Seeking Behaviours for Male Students: A Framework for Developing a Complex Intervention

Ilyas Sagar-Ouriaghli, Emma Godfrey, Selina Graham and June S. L. Brown
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Ilyas Sagar-Ouriaghli: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, London SE5 8AF, UK
Emma Godfrey: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, London SE5 8AF, UK
Selina Graham: School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Sciences, King’s College London, London SE1 9NH, UK
June S. L. Brown: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, London SE5 8AF, UK

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 14, 1-34

Abstract: Men are less likely to seek help for mental health difficulties and this process is often used to help explain the disproportionally higher suicide rates compared to women. Furthermore, university students are often regarded as a vulnerable population group with a lower propensity to seek help. Thus, male students are a very high-risk group that is even more reluctant to seek help for mental health difficulties, placing them at high risk of suicide. Often, student mental health problems are highlighted in the media, but very few evidence-based solutions specifically designed for male students exist. The current paper seeks to provide a comprehensive framework about how to better design mental health interventions that seek to improve male students’ willingness to access psychological support. The Medical Research Council’s (MRC’s) framework for developing a complex intervention was used to develop an intervention relevant to male students. In this paper, previous help-seeking interventions and their evaluation methods are first described, secondly, a theoretical framework outlining the important factors male students face when accessing support, and thirdly, how these factors can be mapped onto a model of behaviour change to inform the development of an evidence-based intervention are discussed. Finally, an example intervention with specific functions and behaviour change techniques is provided to demonstrate how this framework can be implemented and evaluated. It is hoped that this framework can be used to help reduce the disparity between male and female students seeking mental health support.

Keywords: help-seeking; men; interventions; students; mental health; COM-B; MRC complex intervention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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