Help! I need somebody: Help-seeking among workers with work-related mental disorders

Abstract Purpose: Worker mental health has emerged as one of the most significant challenges in contemporary workplaces. Knowing what intervention is effective is important to help workers adapt to mental health problems but connecting workers to helpful resources is just as important and perhaps more of a challenge. With the multiple stakeholders involved, mental health problems arising in the workplace poses specific challenges to help-seeking. The present study sought to understand the personal and contextual influences on help-seeking among workers with work-related mental health problems. Methods: A qualitative methodology was employed utilizing purposive sampling to conduct semi-structured interviews with individuals (n=12) from various occupational backgrounds who had experienced a work-related (self-declared) mental health injury. Interpretative phenomenological analysis and thematic content analysis were combined to analyze the data. Results: Three main themes emerged including: 1) self-preservation through injury concealment and distancing themselves from workplace stressors to minimize/avoid internal and external stigma, 2) fatigue relating to complex help-seeking pathways, accumulation of stressors, eroding the worker’s ability to make decisions regarding supports, and 3) (mis)trust in the people and processes involving dual relationships with help providers and the workplace and trust in peer referrals and networks for help. Conclusions: Findings suggest the need to educate workplace parties such as supervisors on mental health and pathways to help, simplifying pathways to service and removing barriers to help seeking including stigmatizing behaviours. Future quantitative and intervention research on workplace mental health should integrate pathways to help into models and frameworks.