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Master Thesis
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Back to Master Index
| Author |
Tee, Poh Yean |
| Title | Correlates of coping strategies on help-seeking behaviour. |
| Institute | Thesis (M.A.) (Applied Psychology) National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University |
| Year | 2001 |
| Supervisor | Lim, Kam Ming |
| Call no. | BF637.C6 Tee |
Summary
This study examined the help-seeking behaviour and coping strategies of sixty Polytechnic students, age ranging from sixteen to twenty-two, in Singapore.
The findings show that the tendency to seek help is a function of both the type of problems and the potential help-giver. There are significant gender differences in the type of concerns the Polytechnic students would seek for help. Male students have a higher tendency to seek help for boy/girl relationships whereas female students would seek help for a wider repertoire of concerns such as peer relationship concerns, health, physical appearance and psychological well-being.
Informal network of friends and parents is much preferred by the students than network of professionals for their social support. This suggests that the students are more willing to disclose to friends, parents and family members. These results are consistent with past research. It has indicated that the youths are less likely and less favourable to utilize professional services available for them in Singapore.
Older male students have indicated that they would seek help from religious counsellors than the younger male students. Older male students also tend to feel more stigma towards counselling and counsellors. Their negative help-seeking attitudes arise from the belief that counsellors do not keep their problems confidential and that counselling is an act of weakness.
Coping strategies which are avoidance in nature and hence, less adaptive, are found to correlate with negative help-seeking behaviours in the sample of students.
Students who used coping strategies such as not coping, ignoring, wishful thinking, tend to view counselling with stigma.
Implications and recommendations for helping professionals to address the negative help-seeking behaviours in view of the negative coping strategies used are discussed and recommendations for further studies in improving social support services for youths are also proposed.
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