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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Suicide is a major health and psychosocial issue worldwide. Of the numerous long-term and short-term risks, intolerable psychological distress associated with psychiatric disorders and stressors was the imminent trigger. The study aimed to investigate the prevalence of psychological distress and associated help-seeking utilization among community residents in Taiwan.
METHODS: A computer-assisted telephone interview method was used to collect data from six consecutive nationwide annual surveys from 2017 to 2022. The participants were recruited from a representative sample of the general population aged 15 and over in Taiwan. The five-item Brief Symptom Rating Scale (BSRS-5) was used to assess psychopathology including insomnia, anxiety, hostility, depression, and inferiority over the past week. A total BSRS-5 score of 6 and more defined psychiatric morbidity. The utilization of help-seeking was categorized into psychiatric services in hospitals and clinics, non-psychiatric physicians, other mental health professionals, and folk therapy. Logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the associations between psychological distress and the utilization of help-seeking services.
RESULTS: In total, 12,638 participants completed the anonymous telephone interview during the study period. The estimated prevalence of one-week psychiatric morbidity (BSRS-5 total >5) ranged from 5.9% to 8.3% across 6 years. Among the individuals with psychiatric morbidity, the distribution of help-seeking service use was 21.9% seeking for psychiatric service, and 22.4% for folk therapy. The presence of any item of psychopathology measured by BSRS-5 and suicidal ideation (SI) presented a significantly higher rate to seek help for four types of services except for the distress of insomnia. The individuals seeking help from psychiatric services and non-psychiatric mental health professions presented a higher BSRS-5 total score than those seeking help from the other types of service. Logistic regression analysis indicated that higher levels of BSRS- 5 total presented a significantly higher odds ratio to see psychiatrists and non-psychiatric mental health workers. The level of different psychological distress had a positive correlation to seeking mental health services with dose-response effects. Although there were higher rates to seek help for a psychiatrist than non-psychiatric mental health professionals, higher odds ratios to seeing non-psychiatric professionals than psychiatrists were noted for items of inferiority (OR= 8.08 vs 2.76), hostility (OR=8.74 vs 5.85) and suicidal ideation (OR=8.43 vs 3.06).
CONCLUSION: Higher levels of general psychological distress could influence the choice to see mental health professionals. A lower rate (21.9%) of the individuals with psychiatric morbidity sought mental health services. Increasing mental health literacy and related treatment indication is critical for effective suicide prevention.
Language: zh |