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Help-seeking behaviour of low-income families in Singapore
Author
Ng, Bie Hah
Supervisor
Lim, Kam Ming
Abstract
Although studies on help-seeking behaviour have been growing in the past decades, it is still in its infancy stage in Singapore and hence, a fertile ground to research on. The current study was undertaken as an exploratory endeavour to examine the help-seeking behaviour of the low-income families in Singapore. Specifically, it was designed to explore the relationships between primary-secondary control and attitudes towards seeking professional help. Primary control is the belief that individuals can enhance their welfare by influencing existing realities while secondary control is the belief that individuals can enhance their welfare by accommodating to existing realities through changing their cognition, affects and/or behaviour. The current study also seeks to identify demographic variables which might influence help-seeking and lastly, to identify the kind of resources and help that are perceived as valuable by the population sample. For this study, a total of 66 low-income families were selected randomly from a Family Service Centre in Singapore. The participants had provided demographic information and completed three inventories namely the Attitude Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help (ATSPPH), Primary-Secondary Control Scale (PSCS) and Barriers to Adolescents Seeking Help (BASH). Overall, the results of this study suggested discrepancies from previous research. In this study, it was found that gender is not a determinant of help-seeking behaviour. It was also found that individuals from the lower income strata are more likely to seek help. Results from the current study shown that low-income families in Singapore tend to choose formal help over informal help. There were indications that more help-seekers approach counselors, social workers and Members of Parliament when they need help. For help-seeking attitudes, low-income families have high confidence in counselor and high stigma tolerance. Prior help-seeking behaviour posed significant differences in interpersonal openness. As for the perception of barriers to help-seeking. The significant barriers were self-perception, the perception of alienation from outsiders, perception of family as sufficient help, confidentiality and perception of peers as sufficient help. Results shown that gender has significant effect on the perception time availability. It was also found that these families have rather high primary and secondary control beliefs. Results indicated that gender, educational level and help-seeking behaviour had no significant effect on primary control beliefs and only prior help-seeking behaviour had significant effect on religious control belief. The effects of control beliefs on attitudes toward seeking help found that participants with lower primary control beliefs tend to perceive affordability to be lower, alienation to be higher, confidentiality to be higher, locus of control to be higher, stigma to be higher and usefulness of counseling to be higher. Secondary control beliefs were found to be significant predictors of positive attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help.
Date Issued
2005
Call Number
HM1141 Ng
Date Submitted
2005