ABSTRACT

Religious individuals are less likely to seek psychotherapy than nonreligious individuals, but few studies have looked at factors that may facilitate or hinder help seeking in these individuals. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior as a lens, we examined individual, congregational, and clergy factors related to help seeking among Christian individuals. Multi-level models using data from 239 participants from 14 randomly selected Christian congregations suggest that congregant religiousness and the frequency at which clergy spoke about mental health were related to help-seeking intentions and attitudes. Furthermore, the availability of mental health programming was related to a decrease in reported depression in the congregation. These results highlight the important role that clergy play in influencing their congregations’ treatment seeking behaviors. Together, mental health advocates, psychotherapists, and clergy may work together to improve the mental health of their communities.

摘要

与非宗教人士相比，宗教人士寻求心理治疗的可能性较小，但很少有研究关注可能促进或阻碍这些人寻求帮助的因素。我们以计划行为理论为视角，研究了与基督徒个体寻求帮助相关的个人、会众和神职人员因素。使用来自 14 个随机选择的基督教会众的 239 名参与者的数据的多层次模型表明，会众的宗教信仰和神职人员谈论心理健康的频率与寻求帮助的意图和态度有关。此外，心理健康计划的可用性与会众中报告的抑郁症减少有关。这些结果突出了神职人员在影响会众寻求治疗行为方面的重要作用。心理健康倡导者、心理治疗师和神职人员可以一起努力改善他们社区的心理健康。