Psychotic-Like Symptoms and Attitudes toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help in Asian-American College Students

Abstract

Studies have found that Asian Americans have more negative attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help compared to other ethnic groups. Cultural-related barriers, demographic, and personal factors are correlated with Asian American mental health and underutilization of treatment services. Additionally, Asian Americans have been shown to have higher scores on both disorganization and interpersonal schizotypal subscales of a commonly used schizotypal personality disorder measure compared to White Americans. The current study recruited 241 Asian-American college students including 70 males and 171 females from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The age range of participants was from 16 years old to 62 years old with a mean of 19.82. Asian-American students’ collective self-esteem had a positive correlation with certain psychotic symptoms of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). First generation Asian-American students were more likely to endorse Magical Ideation symptom of the schizotypal personality disorder than second generation. However, the current study did not find Asian Americans’ attitude toward seeking professional psychological help to be significantly correlated with generational status, multi-ethnic identity, or collective self-esteem. These results suggest that cultural factors may influence the manifestation of schizotypal personality symptoms in Asian Americans.