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Relationships between adolescents’ preferred sources of help and emotional distress, ambivalence over emotional expression, and causal attribution of symptoms: a Singapore study

ABSTRACT Past research has shown that many adolescents with depression and anxiety disorders do not consult mental health professionals. This study examines how emotional distress, ambivalence over emotional expression, and causal attribution of depressive and anxious symptoms are related to adolescents’ preferred sources of help for these symptoms. 300 secondary school students in Singapore were surveyed. Results show that distress, ambivalence, psychosocial causation, and biomedical causation were positively correlated with each other; distress was inversely associated with preference for seeking help from a family doctor; ambivalence was inversely associated with preference for a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) physician; physiological causation was positively associated with preference for a medical doctor and TCM physician; and psychosocial causation was positively associated with preference for a mental health professional. These findings are discussed from an Asian cultural perspective and their implications for school mental health services will also be discussed.