{"doi":"10.1192/bjp.bp.116.189464","title":"Association between mental health-related stigma and active help-seeking: Systematic review and meta-analysis","abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>Mental disorders create high individual and societal costs and burden, partly because help-seeking is often delayed or completely avoided. Stigma related to mental disorders or mental health services is regarded as a main reason for insufficient help-seeking.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Aims</jats:title><jats:p>To estimate the impact of four stigma types (help-seeking attitudes and personal, self and perceived public stigma) on active help-seeking in the general population.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Method</jats:title><jats:p>A systematic review of three electronic databases was followed by random effect meta-analyses according to the stigma types.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>Twenty-seven studies fulfilled eligibility criteria. Participants' own negative attitudes towards mental health help-seeking (OR = 0.80, 95% CI 0.73–0.88) and their stigmatising attitudes towards people with a mental illness (OR = 0.82, 95% CI 0.69–0.98) were associated with less active help-seeking. Self-stigma showed insignificant association (OR = 0.88, 95% CI 0.76–1.03), whereas perceived public stigma was not associated.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>Personal attitudes towards mental illness or help-seeking are associated with active help-seeking for mental problems. Campaigns promoting help-seeking and fighting mental illness-related stigma should target these personal attitudes rather than broad public opinion.</jats:p></jats:sec>","journal":"British Journal of Psychiatry","year":2017,"id":631695,"datarank":12.490167044442051,"base_score":6.587550014824796,"endowment":6.587550014824796,"self_citation_contribution":0.9881325022237195,"citation_network_contribution":11.502034542218333,"self_endowment_contribution":0.9881325022237195,"citer_contribution":11.502034542218333,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":725,"citer_count":200,"citers_with_citation_signal":200,"citers_with_endowment":200,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":705300,"name":"Radoslaw Panczak","orcid":"0000-0001-5141-683X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1637162,"name":"Nicola Groth","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1637163,"name":"Frauke Schultze-Lutter","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1637161,"name":"Nina Schnyder","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Association between mental health-related stigma and active help-seeking: Systematic review and meta-analysis","abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>Mental disorders create high individual and societal costs and burden, partly because help-seeking is often delayed or completely avoided. Stigma related to mental disorders or mental health services is regarded as a main reason for insufficient help-seeking.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Aims</jats:title><jats:p>To estimate the impact of four stigma types (help-seeking attitudes and personal, self and perceived public stigma) on active help-seeking in the general population.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Method</jats:title><jats:p>A systematic review of three electronic databases was followed by random effect meta-analyses according to the stigma types.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>Twenty-seven studies fulfilled eligibility criteria. Participants' own negative attitudes towards mental health help-seeking (OR = 0.80, 95% CI 0.73–0.88) and their stigmatising attitudes towards people with a mental illness (OR = 0.82, 95% CI 0.69–0.98) were associated with less active help-seeking. Self-stigma showed insignificant association (OR = 0.88, 95% CI 0.76–1.03), whereas perceived public stigma was not associated.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>Personal attitudes towards mental illness or help-seeking are associated with active help-seeking for mental problems. Campaigns promoting help-seeking and fighting mental illness-related stigma should target these personal attitudes rather than broad public opinion.</jats:p></jats:sec>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":6.587550014824796,"endowment":6.587550014824796,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"28153928","pmcid":null,"openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W2585744943","authors":[],"funders":[],"total_grants":0,"fwci":7.8906,"citation_percentile":0.99212598,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2012,"count":1},{"year":2016,"count":1},{"year":2017,"count":6},{"year":2018,"count":27},{"year":2019,"count":28},{"year":2020,"count":75},{"year":2021,"count":83},{"year":2022,"count":106},{"year":2023,"count":97},{"year":2024,"count":118},{"year":2025,"count":127},{"year":2026,"count":55}],"oa_status":"bronze","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/013AE32C41016EA531E6CA2B3F3D58FE/S0007125000281105a.pdf/div-class-title-association-between-mental-health-related-stigma-and-active-help-seeking-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis-div.pdf","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/013AE32C41016EA531E6CA2B3F3D58FE/S0007125000281105a.pdf/div-class-title-association-between-mental-health-related-stigma-and-active-help-seeking-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis-div.pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0007125000281105","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.116.189464","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28153928","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://boris.unibe.ch/95244/","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://osf.io/drb7v","host_type":"repository"}],"fields_of_study":["Mental Health Treatment and Access","Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology","Racial and Ethnic Identity Research"],"mesh_terms":["Humans","Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice","Patient Acceptance of Health Care","Persons with Psychiatric Disorders","Mentally Ill Persons","Social Stigma"],"keywords":["Stigma (botany)","Help-seeking","Mental illness","Mental health","Meta-analysis","Social stigma","Psychiatry","Psychology","Population","Clinical psychology","Public health","Association (psychology)","Medicine","Family medicine","Environmental health","Psychotherapist","Nursing"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-06T00:26:57.641338Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}