Adolescents’ Help-Seeking Behaviour

Adolescents’ Help-Seeking Behaviour

Adolescence period extends from the time one becomes sexually mature until the age of

18 years. Papalia and Wendkos (1992) observe that there is a lot of ambiguity regarding

the role of adolescents; they undergo a lot of emotional problems, which seem to be their

most important concern. Other problems experienced by adolescents are as a result of

physical and hormonal changes during adolescence and increasing demands put on young

people by their family, teachers and peers. When the adolescents are faced with such

problems, in some cases they may not be able to handle them on their own and hence the

problems may impair their overall adjustment in life.

herself/himself requiring personal, psychological, affective assistance or social services,

with the aim of overcoming a challenge. Help may be requested from informal sources of

support, such as family members (parents, siblings, relatives) or peers (friends,

classmates). Help may also be sought from the formal help network, consisting of health

professionals (physicians, psychologists and social workers) and community-based

organizations. Both informal and formal help- seeking have been found to be an adaptive

coping strategy, resulting in better adjustment and less emotional and behavioural

problems in young people (Lazarus, 1991; Windle, 1992).

The aspect of help-seeking being addressed is the positive one because at times young

people may engage in behaviour due to interactions such as association with anti-social

system). There is also help-seeking for normative developmental needs, including help in

sexuality or puberty; and/or other concerns that are frequently associated with

adolescence. Finally, the third category of help-seeking behaviour is in relation to

personal stress or problems, such as those related to family violence, abuse relationship

stresses, acute financial needs and homelessness among others within the family set-up.

Research findings have indicated that adolescents of all ages seek for assistance from

both formal and informal sources although in some cases the age seems to influence the

preferred source. Dubow, Lovoko, and Kausch (1990) found that help-seeking from

friends and the school guidance counsellor increased with age. In addition, older students

reported their friends as significantly more helpful than younger adolescents, and were

more aware of professional help-seeking sources available to them. Ciarrochi et al 2003

Kausch, 1990). Sawyer (2001) got similar findings that young people do not seek help

even when they experience severe emotional and behavioural problems. For example, of

those Australian children and adolescents who were in the top 10% of the most

severe emotional and behavioural problems, only 50% had accessed professional services

in the last six months prior to the study, and 17% of those who accessed professional

services actually accessed mental health services (Sawyer, 2001).

Due to increased vulnerability to psychological, behavioural and social problems during

adolescence, failure of adolescents to seek help and the far reaching impact of being

maladjusted at this age, there is need for more research to be done on coping strategies,

such as help-seeking, that contribute to adjustment and also look into ways of ensuring

that the adolescents are willing to use the guidance and counselling services in schools

This may bring a sense of well-being, satisfaction and hence reducing the number of

maladjusted people in the society making the society a better place to live in.

Attitudes towards Seeking Psychological Help among Students

Attitudes are predispositions which have developed through long and complex process.

Anastasi (1990) defined attitude as a tendency to react favourably or unfavourably

towards a designated class of stimuli. Ubom (2001) defined attitude as an individual

perception and reaction to a task which is expected to be carried out or executed in a

group, institution, school setting or an organisation. It is evident that attitude cannot be

directly observed, but must be inferred from overt behaviour, both verbal and non-verbal.

Attitude can be said to be positive or high when individuals‟ response to the task or

help from teacher counsellors and other potential help providers but others showing that

they do. Some factors like student‟s age and gender, counsellor‟s age, gender and teacher

counsellor‟s qualifications have been noted to influence the attitude towards seeking

counselling help among students.

Research on Kuwait University students established that female students had a more

have a more positive attitude towards seeking counselling help than males. Lonnie and

Darrell (2007), in a study of attitudes toward counselling and counsellor preference,

found out that gender is statistically significant predictors of attitudes toward counselling

with female being associated with more favourable attitudes toward seeking counselling.

Ubana (2008) in her research study on the attitude of secondary school students towards

guidance and counselling services in Yakurr local government area of Cross River State

came up with the findings that students‟ attitudes toward guidance and counselling

services was negative. Ubana further found out that gender of the student had no

significant influence on students‟ attitudes toward guidance and counselling services.

Denga (1983) studied the attitude of 2000 students towards the counsellor from the then

male counterparts. Anyona (1989), in study of factors affecting guidance and counselling,

found out that there were no effective guiding and counselling services being offered in

secondary schools due to the negative attitudes toward guidance and counselling.

Gitonga‟s study (1999) revealed that students generally were unwilling to admit that they

had problems and they refused to open up and were very uncooperative. In yet another

study by Wanjohi (1990) as cited by Mokogi, revealed that guidance and counselling

services, which are relatively new in Kenyan schools, are viewed with skepticism by

students.

Also Nyamwange, Nyakan, and Ondima‟s (2012) study on assessment of challenges

felt it was necessary and only 38% of the students consider guidance and counselling as

essential in boosting their self-understanding. Equally only 49% of the students in the

study felt that guidance and counselling had a role to play in enhancing their ability to

make important choices like choosing careers.

However, Mokogi (2008) study on factors influencing guidance and counselling in

secondary schools in Ogembo Division indicated that students had a positive attitude

necessary in their school, 96.7% of the respondents gave a yes response. However only

59.9% of the respondents had positive attitudes toward their teacher counsellors. Boit and

Chepchieng (2011) also found that students relied more on guidance counsellors for their

first advice of careers than other sources which included parents, friends among others

which reflects a positive attitude towards guidance and counselling. These findings

indicate that some students have a positive attitude towards counselling, while others

have a negative one.

Therefore, a lot of effort should be put in place to ensure all learners develop the right

attitude towards counselling. This may be done by ensuring that the teachers in-charge of

counselling are well trained and have characteristics which encourage adolescents to seek

important and will seek help in many situations making them to finally develop the help-