Blackwell Reference Online

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Help-seeking refers to efforts or actions designed to assist individuals with physical, mental, or emotional behaviors or manifestations somehow noticed as out of the ordinary. Often, this term is used interchangeably with service utilization, health-care decision-making, or health/illness behavior. However, a number of factors differentiate the concept of help-seeking from the others. First, help-seeking is broader than service utilization, which generally taps formal, scientific medical services. Individuals may seek out lay, scientific, or alternative sources of advice or assistance perceived as potentially useful. Further, help-seeking can mean going to a provider of a medical system but, just as readily, can be applied to using the Internet for information, talking to neighbors about their experience with similar conditions, buying over-the-counter medications, praying, or joining a self-help group. Second, the term is narrower than health/illness behavior because, technically, it refers to an active search by the parties involved. Individuals may, indeed, seek out care; however, it is also likely that individuals will experience legal coercion into the formal medical care system. The issues of involuntary treatment for mental illness symptoms, contact by public health authorities regarding possible HIV exposure, or employees forced to use physicians for an insurance check-up ... log in or subscribe to read full text