University Students’ Attitudes Toward Seeking Psychological Help for Psycho-Social Problems in Two Selected Public Universities in Tanzania: A Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

Universities worldwide have established psychological help services to help students deal with ever-growing psycho-social problems. However, evidence shows that students do not prefer using the available services. Nevertheless, the available evidence offers limited information about university students’ attitudes toward seeking psychological help in Tanzania. Thus, the present study examined university students’ attitudes toward seeking psychological help for psycho-social problems. Data were collected from 740 students using questionnaires and focus group discussions. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze students’ help-seeking attitudes. The independent sample t-test was used to determine the difference in students’ attitudes by age, sex, and year of study. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the means of attitudes by students’ field of study. Thematic analysis technique guided the analysis of FGDs data. The findings revealed that most university students had positive attitudes toward seeking psychological help for the studied psycho-social problems. The FGDs findings revealed that students had positive attitudes mainly because they could get relief from the problems they faced, the presence of confidentiality to information shared, and the perceived competence of help service providers. Furthermore, the findings indicated a statistically significant difference in attitude scores for female students ( M = 40.56, SD = 3.78) and male students ( M = 39.64, SD = 4.62; t (723) = 2.9, p = 0.004, two-tailed). Moreover, university students’ attitudes differed significantly by fields of study, F (3, 723) = 8.12, p < .001. Promoting positive help-seeking attitudes among students might improve their utilization of psychological help services.