Measuring Help-Seeking Intentions: Properties of the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire
Introduces the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire and evaluates help-seeking intentions.
Needing support does not always mean asking for it. This research line examines intentions to seek psychological help, barriers to reaching out and the problem of help-negation: greater need can coexist with less willingness to seek help.
Emotional competence is one part of that picture. The studies below ask how identifying and managing emotions, beliefs about help and hopelessness relate to which people and services young people would approach.
Measurement is central. The General Help-Seeking Questionnaire distinguishes sources of support and problem contexts, rather than treating all help-seeking as one event. Intentions and actual help-seeking are related questions, but they are not the same measure.
Start with the GHSQ validation paper and the help-negation studies. The existing research hub and questionnaire guide provide the original form and administration notes; these research materials are not a crisis-response service.
Key papers: a reading path
Suicidal ideation and help‐negation: Not just hopelessness or prior help
Examines help-negation in relation to suicidal ideation, hopelessness and prior help.
Adolescents who need help the most are the least likely to seek it: The relationship between low emotional competence and low intention to seek help
Studies emotional competence and intentions to seek help among adolescents.
Emotional competence and willingness to seek help from professional and nonprofessional sources
Compares willingness to seek professional and nonprofessional help.
Do difficulties with emotions inhibit help-seeking in adolescence? The role of age and emotional competence in predicting help-seeking intentions
Explores how difficulties with emotions relate to adolescent help-seeking intentions.
Can hopelessness and adolescents' beliefs and attitudes about seeking help account for help negation?
Examines beliefs, attitudes and hopelessness as explanations of help-negation.
Young people’s help-seeking for mental health problems
Provides an overview of young people’s help-seeking for mental health problems.
Measures and tools
Collaborators in these papers
Coauthors in this selection include Frank P. Deane, Coralie J. Wilson, Debra Rickwood. Full author lists appear on the linked paper pages.
How to cite the core work
Cite the specific paper that supports the point you are making, rather than this reading guide. Starting references:
Wilson, C. J., Deane, F. P., Ciarrochi, J. V., & Rickwood, D. (2005). Measuring help-seeking intentions: Properties of the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 39 (1), 15–28.
Deane, F. P., Wilson, C. J., & Ciarrochi, J. (2001). Suicidal ideation and help‐negation: Not just hopelessness or prior help. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 57(7), 901–914. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.1058
Ciarrochi, J., Deane, F. P., Wilson, C. J., & Rickwood, D. (2002). Adolescents who need help the most are the least likely to seek it: The relationship between low emotional competence and low intention to seek help. British Journal of Guidance &Amp; Counselling, 30(2), 173–188. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069880220128047