Semester of Graduation

Spring 2026

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

With relatively few individuals who experience suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors (STB) engaging in formal treatment, one critical aspect of bridging the treatment gap is to reduce barriers to their seeking help (WHO, 2014). Stigma regarding suicide and mental health help-seeking has been identified as a barrier to care, inspiring development of interventions and public health campaigns targeting stigma reduction as a means of increasing help-seeking attitudes, intentions, and behavior (Corrigan et al., 2004). However, because efforts focusing specifically on reducing stigma may fail to address other logistical and psychosocial barriers to engaging with treatment, their broader impact in promoting help-seeking among people experiencing STB has been questioned (Hom et al., 2015). Rogers and colleagues' (2018) evaluation of two online single-session stigma reduction interventions in an adult sample determined that psychoeducation and lived experience interventions both outperformed a control condition in reducing participants' suicide-related stigma, but did not indicate whether that stigma reduction was associated with any changes in help-seeking attitudes, intentions, or behavior. In the present study, reports of help-seeking intentions collected across three timepoints from 204 adult individuals (54.9% White, 82.4% heterosexual, 64.2% women) initially recruited as part of the Rogers and colleagues (2018) study were examined using multilevel linear model analyses to determine the effects of these online single-session stigma reduction interventions in promoting help-seeking. Study findings indicated that neither experimental condition affected significant changes in overall participant help-seeking intentions, nor in intentions to seek help for specific concerns or from specific classes of helping resource. Post hoc analyses of help-seeking intentions in subgroups of the entire sample showed limited differences in relationships between predictors and outcome variables across groups differing by included sociodemographic and psychological history characteristics, while such differences as were observed also could not be directly attributed to participants' completion of their assigned interventions. In combination, these findings support previous suggestions that suicide stigma reduction interventions may be necessary but insufficient for promoting help-seeking, even with the additional circumvention of barriers to accessing these interventions enabled by an online, single-session delivery.

Date

4-21-2026

Committee Chair

Tucker, Raymond P.

LSU Acknowledgement

1

LSU Accessibility Acknowledgment

1

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