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Objective: Research has shown that young adults at clinical high risk (CHR) for developing psychosis have difficulties seeking, accessing, and staying engaged with mental health services. The present study explored perspectives on engagement with mental health services among young adults at CHR. Method: In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 participants at CHR, ages 18-30, from an Eastern U.S. state. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyzed qualitative data. Results: Six major categories emerged from the data reflecting participants' perspectives of engagement with services. Contextual factors such as social, community, and online networks mattered to young adults, and individual factors such as level of awareness, stigma, emotions, and environmental factors emerged as critical. These factors suggested a conceptual model of service utilization among young adults at clinical high risk for developing psychosis that builds upon and extends existing conceptual frameworks of service use among young adults. Conclusion and Implications for Practice: A conceptual model of service utilization among young adults at CHR emerged from that data that can inform interventions aimed at improving engagement in services and reduce the amount of time young adults at CHR remain untreated for emerging psychological problems. Furthermore, this study highlights the unique contribution of mental health service use messages received from online networks and a possible relationship between hierarchical stigma and service use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that how people think about their health (or illnesses) shapes their help-seeking behavior. In this mixed-methods study, we employed a simultaneous concurrent design to explore the perceptions of mental illness among an understudied population: marginalized young adults. Participants were 60 young adults (ages 18-25) who had experienced mood disorders and used multiple public systems of care during their childhoods. Semistructured interviews were conducted to understand participants' illness and treatment experiences during the transition to adulthood. A team of analysts used constant comparison to develop a codebook of the qualitative themes, and quantitative data were examined using SAS 9.3. Findings suggest that some theoretical categories identified in past illness-perceptions frameworks are salient to marginalized young adults (e.g., identity, management-or control-of symptoms), but both the developmental transition to adulthood and experiences with public systems of care add nuanced variations to illness and treatment perceptions. Our study demonstrates that young adults possess a set of beliefs and emotions about their mental health and help-seeking options that need to be better understood to improve engagement and quality of mental health care for this population. Implications for practice, research, and policy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Race and gender differences in help seeking are well-established; however, reasons for these differences are less clear. This study examined race and gender differences in two potential contributors--perceptions of illness and attitudes toward treatment--in a sample of marginalized young adults. Method: Interviews were conducted with young adults (age 18--25) with prior involvement in public systems of care and mood disorder diagnoses (n = 60). A quantitative interview assessed illness perceptions and attitudes followed by a qualitative interview focused on perceptions of mental illness and treatment. Analyses examined quantitative differences across four race/gender subgroups--White women (n = 13), White men (n = 6), women of color (n = 27), and men of color (n = 14), then qualitative results were reviewed for a subset of cases (n = 30) to understand differences revealed in the quantitative analyses. Results: Women of color had lower scores on illness understanding compared to other groups and men of color had lower scores on chronicity. Attitudes including propensity toward help seeking and stigma resistance were lowest in men of color, followed by women of color. Qualitative findings supported that men of color viewed their symptoms as less chronic and managed symptoms by changing their mindset rather than formal treatments. White participants talked more about their illnesses as chronic conditions and spoke more positively of treatment. Conclusion and Implications for Practice: Race/gender differences were identified, particularly in relation to views of mental illness and stigma. Messaging that highlights independence and strength in relation to managing symptoms may be particularly important for young people of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]