背景:经历抑郁症的医疗居民会对自己和患者造成危及生命的伤害。治疗是可用的,但许多人并不寻求帮助。
方法:当前的三项研究调查了抑郁症状本身是否成为寻求帮助的障碍,以及对寻求帮助的益处的期望是否提供了对这种情况发生原因的见解。从美国几家不同医院的医疗居民那里收集了九波横截面数据。
结果:在研究1和3中,抑郁症状的水平与寻求帮助的意图(H1)之间存在很大的负相关。在研究2中,这种关联对于两种寻求帮助的措施之一具有重要意义。对于所有分析,研究,和措施,居民的抑郁症状水平与寻求帮助会导致积极结果(H2)的共识之间存在很大的负相关。同样,所有分析都有中等大小的间接影响,研究,和措施,使得抑郁症状水平和寻求帮助的意图之间的关联是通过不太有利的寻求帮助的好处(H3)。与寻求帮助相关的益处的较低一致性解释了43%至65%的抑郁症状学与寻求帮助的意图之间的负面关联。
结论:目前的研究结果表明,抑郁症症状学本身代表了寻求帮助的障碍,并强调了寻求帮助的期望在解释为什么会发生这种情况时的重要性。如果未来的研究揭示了寻求帮助的感知利益和寻求帮助的意图之间的因果关系,那么增加这种期望可以为增加居民寻求帮助提供一条潜在的途径。
BACKGROUND: Medical residents experiencing depression can cause life-threatening harm to themselves and their patients. Treatment is available, but many do not seek help.
METHODS: The current set of three studies investigated whether depressive symptomatology in and of itself served as a help-seeking barrier-and whether expectations of help-seeking benefits provided insight into why this occurred. Nine waves of cross-sectional data were collected from medical residents across several different hospitals in the United States.
RESULTS: There was a large negative association between levels of depressive symptomatology and help-seeking intentions (H1) in Studies 1 and 3. In Study 2, this association was significant for one of the two help-seeking measures. For all analyses, studies, and measures, there was a large negative association between residents\' levels of depressive symptomatology and agreement that seeking help will lead to positive outcomes (H2). Likewise, there was a moderately large indirect effect for all analyses, studies, and measures such that the association between levels of depressive symptomatology and help-seeking intentions occurred through less favorable expectations of help-seeking benefits (H3). Lower agreement of the benefits associated with help-seeking explained between 43 and 65% of depressive symptomatology\'s negative association with help-seeking intentions across studies.
CONCLUSIONS: The current findings indicate that depressive symptomatology itself represents a help-seeking barrier and underscore the importance of help-seeking expectations in explaining why this occurs. If future studies reveal a causal relationship between the perceived benefits of help-seeking and help-seeking intentions, then increasing such expectations could offer a potential path for increasing resident help-seeking.