Help-seeking attitudes and intentions for generalised anxiety disorder in adolescents: the role of anxiety literacy and stigma

Help seeking for anxiety tends to be low in adolescents. Identifying modifiable factors that may facilitate help seeking is important. The aim of the current study is to test the effects of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) literacy and stigma (personal and perceived) on attitudes and intentions toward seeking help from professionals and key adult sources. 1767 adolescents aged 12–18 years participated in the current study and completed measures of GAD literacy, GAD stigma, professional help-seeking attitudes, and intentions to seek help from a range of sources. The results of the study found that participants had limited GAD literacy and up to 20% personally agreed with stigmatising statements about GAD. Participants reported greater intentions to seek help from parents than from formal sources. More positive attitudes toward seeking help were associated with higher levels of GAD literacy (p < 0.001) and lower personal GAD stigma (p < 0.001). Lower perceived GAD stigma was associated with increased intentions to seek help from their mothers (p < 0.05) or fathers (p < 0.01), while lower personal GAD stigma was also associated with help-seeking intentions from their mothers (p < 0.05). Higher perceived GAD stigma was associated with intentions to seek help from nobody (p < 0.001). Overall, the current study highlights the important role that parents can play in the help-seeking process for adolescents, with parents often the most accessible source of help. Improving parent and adolescent knowledge and attitudes towards GAD may help to improve early help seeking in young people.