Help-seeking for Social Anxiety symptoms in Ghana: Looking through the lens of sexist attitudes

While health research has demonstrated the influence of cultural disparities on health outcomes, the impact of ambivalent sexism on mental health help-seeking has not been well understood. We investigated the links between sexist attitudes, Mental Health Literacy (MHL), and sociodemographic variables regarding symptoms of Social Anxiety among Ghanaians. In 2021, we recruited 601 Ghanaians to participate in an online vignette-based experimental study. Respondents were randomly assigned to two conditions (i.e., male, and female vignettes) depicting symptoms of Social Anxiety for a hypothetical person. Participants provided their impression of the hypothetical person and further completed self-report measures. Regarding help-seeking for the symptoms of Social Anxiety, results revealed that age positively predicted professional help-seeking among men assigned to the male condition, while age negatively predicted social support among women in the same condition. Education was found to relate positively to professional and social support help-seeking options but was negatively linked with spiritual help-seeking. Benevolent sexist attitudes towards women related to the endorsement of professional help-seeking, but participants with benevolent sexist attitudes towards men were less likely to recommend social support. Findings imply that optimal interventions for mental health could benefit from understanding help-seeking patterns, idioms of psychological distress and the cultural settings of individuals.