College Students' Intentions to Seek Help for Suicidal Ideation: Accounting for the Help-Negation Effect.

Prior research has identified a negative association between suicidal ideation and help-seeking, a phenomenon called 'help-negation.' Help-negation has been documented to occur for both professional and nonprofessional sources of help. In this study help-seeking attitudes, stigma concerns, and perceptions of social support were examined as possible mediators of help-negation. Data were collected from a nonclinical sample of college undergraduates at a midwestern university (N = 321). Findings provided partial support for the mediation hypotheses. Help-seeking attitudes and stigma were significant predictors of help-seeking intentions (β = .34 and β = −.17, p < .05, respectively), but did not mediate helpnegation for professional sources. Perceptions of social support, on the other hand, fully mediated help-negation for nonprofessional sources (β = .27, p < .05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]