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PubMed1982

Natural networks: help-giving and help-seeking in two rural communities.

A group of 213 respondents in rural communities were interviewed about their help-giving and help-seeking behaviors related to 11 problems of living. Respondents were asked whom they had talked to within their natural community networks, who was most helpful, and how effective they rated the helping. The results indicate that over 80% of the respondents saw themselves as active help-givers and receivers in exchanges with spouses, friends, relatives, and others. A wide range of helping activities were reported, led by attempts to understand another person's situation and feelings and just listening. Differences in help-giving and help-seeking were noted. Respondents indicated a general willingness to tackle problems, a preference for help from people within their networks, and that this type of help is effective.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2004

Help to older parents and parents-in-law: does paid employment constrain women's helping behaviour?

While concern has been expressed for some time about the impact of rising female employment on informal help to older adults, few studies have directly compared employed and not-employed women and only rarely has research utilized national, population-based samples. This article examines whether paid employment reduces the provision and/or the intensity of specific types of help offered by women to older parents and parents-in-law. Data were drawn from the 1996 General Social Survey of Canada and consist of a sub-sample of women aged 40 to 64 who had at least one parent or parent-in-law alive. The independent variable is employment status (full-time, part-time, not employed). Dependent variables are type of help (meal preparation, cleaning, home maintenance, grocery shopping, transportation, banking and money management, personal care) and intensity of help. Two additional types of help examined are emotional support and checking up or monitoring. The analysis shows that employed daughters and daughters-in-law are less likely than those who are not employed to provide help with banking or bill paying but no differences are found on other types of help. Employment status is not significantly related to the total amount of time spent helping older parents and parents-in-law, although not-employed women spend more time helping with meal preparation. Women employed part-time are less likely to provide emotional support to a parent or parent-in-law. There are no differences by employment status in the likelihood of checking up on or monitoring the parent's or parent-in-law's situation. It is concluded that, on the whole, in the domains measured in this study, employment does not reduce women's provision of help to parents and parents-in-law.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Parents of adolescents: help-seeking intentions as a function of help sources and parenting issues.

This study examined the declared intentions of parents of adolescents to seek help from potential sources for a variety of hypothetical problems related to parenting. The relationship between hypothetical help-seeking and certain characteristics of the help-seeker (sex, educational level, parenting, self-confidence, birth order, and sex of the adolescent), and the source of help (natural support system, professional support system, and media); and the problem type were investigated. The research population included 187 parents of adolescents. A questionnaire was formulated for the purpose of the study which examined help-seeking from nine sources of help on eight hypothetical parenting issues. Intention to seek help was found to be a function of both the particular problem type and the potential source of help. In general, parents declared their intention to seek help from and rely on a variety of sources. It was found that parents said that they were most likely to seek help from their spouses regardless of the issue, whereas professional sources were most likely to be consulted in their area of expertise.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Alternative modalities of help within socio-political and ethnic minorities: self-help among Arabs living in Israel.

The present paper deals with alternative modalities of help within sociopolitical and ethnic minorities. It explores the phenomenon of self-help as one modality of help within the Arab population living in Israel. The analysis is based on four research studies, which incorporate the perspectives of lay people, professionals, self-help group members, and students in the helping professions, regarding definitional issues associated with the concept of self-help and attitudes toward such a modality of help. Findings obtained from the four studies reported here suggest that a natural fit exists between the Arab culture and such a helping modality as self-help organizations. Based on the findings, practical recommendations are outlined for use in the area of social work with socio-political and ethnic minorities.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Spouses' attributions for helping: the effects of styles of help-seeking, self-serving bias, and sex.

This paper examines the effects of (a) how clearly the desire for help is presented, (b) self-serving bias, and (c) sex differences on the source of the cause of helping happening (or not) that spouses attribute to a potential helper. In two studies, a total of 138 couples imagined situations in which a person wanted his or her spouse to do a chore. How clearly the desire for help was expressed, whether help was given, and whether it was the participant or the spouse who was expected to help were manipulated. The participants reported their attributions for the cause of helping (or not) to themselves and the spouse on visual analog scales. There was strong support for a proposed interaction between how clearly the desire for help was expressed and whether help was given in predicting spouses' attributions. No support was obtained for a predicted self-serving bias or for a suggestion that men make more self-enhancing attributions than women, the findings were instead congruent with a relationship-enhancing bias. The findings are discussed in terms of the context of housework.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Can hopelessness and adolescents' beliefs and attitudes about seeking help account for help negation?

Avoidance of appropriate help is common in acutely suicidal samples and has been confirmed in nonclinical samples but factors that contribute to this help negation effect remain unclear. In a sample of 269 nonclinical Australian high school students, the current study examines the impact of hopelessness, previous mental health care, beliefs, and attitudes toward professional psychological help on the help negation relationship. Results revealed that suicidal ideation significantly predicted lower help seeking intentions and that although hopelessness could not explain the help negation effect, it moderated the effect for seeking help from family. They also revealed that although previous mental health care was unable to explain the effect fully for professional mental health sources, beliefs and attitudes about professional psychological help could. Implications of the findings for prevention, primary health care, and professional psychological practice are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

When the Going Gets Tough, Do the Tough Ask for Help? Help Seeking and Power Motivation in Organizations.

Individuals do not seek help, even when help is needed and available, because help seeking implies incompetence and dependence, and therefore is related to powerlessness. It was hypothesized that gender, status, and organizational norms affect the importance of maintaining and accruing power, which in turn affect help seeking behaviors. A laboratory and a field study showed that there was more help seeking between equal-status than unequal-status individuals. Further, both studies revealed that males sought more help in collective than individualistic organizational norms, though the trend was not apparent for females. These results shed light on the psychological mechanisms underlying help seeking behaviors and have practical implications for developing steps to foster help seeking in organizations. Copyright 1997 Academic Press.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1995

Predictors of help-seeking and the temporal relationship of help to recovery among treated and untreated recovered problem drinkers.

This study investigated variables predicting different help-seeking patterns (no treatment, AA participation only, or treatment plus AA participation) by problem drinkers who had maintained stable abstinence (n = 57). Collaterals verified subjects' help-seeking and drinking status. Help-seeking was predicted by greater alcohol-related psycho-social problems, especially in interpersonal relationships, but was not associated with heavier drinking practices or demographic characteristics. Subjects' belief that they could solve their own problem deterred help-seeking, whereas relationship problems and being unable to quit on one's own facilitated help-seeking. Additional incentives specific to AA were its privacy, anonymity, spiritual aspects, opportunities to help other problem drinkers, and the convenient meetings held at times typically spent drinking. Many subjects became abstinent before they sought help, especially from treatment programs. These findings implicate interpersonal factors as primary incentives for help-seeking and suggest that interventions often consolidate, rather than initiate, positive changes in drinking practices.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Self-help and guided self-help treatments for bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

This article reviews the use of self-help and guided self-help treatments for bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED). Available data suggest that self-help and guided self-help treatments based on empirically-supported cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) have efficacy for binge eating problems. Emerging findings from initial studies suggest that the magnitude of the differences in outcomes between certain guided-self-help CBT programs and therapist-led CBT may not be substantial, although further research is clearly indicated. Initial data suggest that self-help and guided self-help CBT programs may not only demonstrate "efficacy" but also "effectiveness"-i.e., utility in "real-world" primary care or community settings. Implications for clinical practice and for future research are discussed.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Helping at the bedside: spouses' preferences for helping critically ill patients.

Spouses of patients in intensive care units (ICU) need to be close and helpful to ill partners. According to adult attachment theory, emotional responses may be related to preferences for closeness and helpfulness, and according to control theory optimism also may influence spouses' emotional responses. Spouses' goals and helping behaviors were assessed in 88 spouses of ICU patients. Using a repeated-measures design, the relationships of closeness, helpfulness, and optimism to emotional outcomes were assessed. Preferences for closeness and helpfulness were strongly related, and together with optimism, predicted spouses' mood at some point of the illness trajectory. Spouses who were over-involved with partners' care requirements were at greater risk for emotional distress. Results suggest that closeness and helpfulness are integrated concepts, and that attachment dimensions of a relationship and optimism are useful for understanding spouses' emotional responses to critical illness.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Self-help groups for families of persons with mental illness: perceived benefits of helpfulness.

Self-help groups have become important resources for families of persons with mental illness. The present study was an attempt to understand the factors perceived by group members as helpful using Yalom's factors in clarifying the dynamics of groups. Members (N = 202) of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Pennsylvania (AMI of PA), an association of self-help groups for families of the mentally ill, were recruited and responded to a self-administered questionnaire. Hierarchical block multiple regression indicated that those AMI members who felt information provision and gaining support and self-understanding from the group process was helpful and were longer term participants in their group were more likely to perceive benefit from belonging to the group. The findings may provide the basis for evaluating and improving self-help group effectiveness and contribute to understanding process factors within a self-help group which members find beneficial. Implications for how these groups can attract and maintain members are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Children's strategies and goals in response to help-giving and help-seeking tasks within a friendship.

The present research tested whether children's responses to help-giving and help-seeking friendship tasks predicted how many friends they had and the quality of their best friendship. Fifth-grade children (N=511; typically 10 or 11 years old) responded to vignettes in which they could either give help to a friend or seek help from a friend. Children's strategies and goals in both contexts were significantly correlated with the number of friends children had. Responses in the help-giving context but not in the help-seeking context were significantly associated with friendship quality. Although gender differences in strategies and goals were found, strategies and goals were related to the number of friends and friendship quality for both boys and girls.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2006

Self-help and guided self-help for eating disorders.

BACKGROUND: Anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder (BED) and eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) are common and disabling disorders. Many patients experience difficulties accessing specialist psychological treatments. Pure self-help (PSH: self-help material only) or guided self-help (GSH: self-help material with therapist guidance), may bridge this gap. OBJECTIVES MAIN OBJECTIVE: Evaluate evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) / controlled clinical trials (CCTs) for the efficacy of PSH/GSH with respect to eating disorder symptoms, compared with waiting list or placebo/attention control, other psychological or pharmacological treatments (or combinations/augmentations) in people with eating disorders. SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: Evaluate evidence for the efficacy of PSH/GSH regarding comorbid symptomatology and costs. SEARCH STRATEGY: CCDANCTR-Studies and CCDANCTR-References were searched in November 2005, other electronic databases were searched, relevant journals and grey literature were checked, and personal approaches were made to authors. SELECTION CRITERIA: Published/unpublished RCTs/CCTs evaluating PSH/GSH for any eating disorder. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Data was extracted using a customized spreadsheet. Relative Risks (RR) were calculated from dichotomous data and weighted/standardized mean differences (WMD/SMD) from continuous data, using a random effects model. MAIN RESULTS: Twelve RCTs and three CCTs were identified, all focusing on BN, BED, EDNOS or combinations of these, in adults, using manual-based PSH/GSH across various settings. Primary comparisons:At end of treatment, PSH/GSH did not significantly differ from waiting list in abstinence from bingeing (RR 0.72, 95% CI 0.47 to 1.09), or purging (RR 0.86, 95% CI 0.68 to 1.08), although these treatments produced greater improvement on other eating disorder symptoms, psychiatric symptomatology and interpersonal functioning but not depression. Compared to other formal psychological therapies, PSH/GSH did not differ significantly at end of treatment or follow-up in improvement on bingeing and purging (RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.75 to 1.31), other eating disorder symptoms, level of interpersonal functioning or depression. There were no significant differences in treatment dropout. Secondary comparisons:One small study in BED found that cognitive-behavioural GSH compared to a non-specific control treatment produced significantly greater improvements in abstinence from bingeing and other eating disorder symptoms. Studies comparing PSH with GSH found no significant differences between treatment groups at end of treatment or follow-up. Comparison between different types of PSH/GSH found significant differences on eating disorder symptoms but not on bingeing/purging abstinence rates. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: PSH/GSH may have some utility as a first step in treatment and may have potential as an alternative to formal therapist-delivered psychological therapy. Future research should focus on producing large well-conducted studies of self-help treatments in eating disorders including health economic evaluations, different types and modes of delivering self-help (e.g. computerised versus manual-based) and different populations and settings.

Anorexia Nervosa↗
PubMed2004

Help-seeking for mental health problems among young physicians: is it the most ill that seeks help? - A longitudinal and nationwide study.

OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were to assess the prevalence of self-reported mental health problems and help-seeking among young physicians, and identify predictors of seeking help. METHODS: A prospective cohort sample of Norwegian medical students (N = 631) were assessed in their final semester (T1), and in the first (T2) and fourth (T3) postgraduate year. The average observation period was 3.6 years. RESULTS: The prevalence of mental health problems that needed treatment over the preceding year was observed to have increased from 11% at T2 to 17% at T3. There was no increase in help-seeking. Longitudinally, 34% reported that they needed treatment on one or several occasions. Adjusted predictors of help-seeking were perceived level of mental health problems and a reality weakness personality trait. CONCLUSION: Those who sought help had higher levels of emotional distress than those who did not. However, higher reality weakness scores predicted lower help-seeking and, therefore, may be a risk factor for avoiding necessary care.

Adult↗