Master of Arts (Applied Psychology)

Past studies on Help-seeking behaviour amongst adolescents found that they prefer to seek help from informal sources rather than from formal sources.

The current study sought to find out the receptivity of adolescents to seeking help from professional sources and their preferred sources of help for three common types of adolescent problems.

The study examined whether receptivity to seeking help from mental health professionally were determined by gender and age. It also examined whether adolescents preferred to seek help from informal sources in general. Thus, hypothesis 1 stated that female adolescents were more receptive than their male counterparts in seeking help, hypothesis 2 stated that younger adolescents were more receptive than older adolescents in seeking help, hypothesis 3 stated that adolescents were more likely to seek help from informal than formal sources across three types of common adolescent problems, and hypothesis 4 stated that adolescents who were receptive to seeking help from professional sources were more likely than individuals who were less receptive, to seek help from formal sources.

Results showed that gender and age did not predict receptivity to seeking help from professional sources, adolescents preferred to seek help from informal sources, and adolescents who were receptive to seeking help from professional sources, preferred to seek help from formal sources of help.

Implications on adolescents' perception towards help-seeking were discussed and recommendations on future areas of research were made.