Barriers to mental health help-seeking - rewriting the narrative for rural communities

Rural communities face significant mental health challenges, including high risk of suicide and poor mental health outcomes. In examining these challenges, research to date has focused on the attitudinal barriers rural people experience when accessing services, yet minimal research has examined these barriers in the context of rural and urban differences. The present study aimed to address this gap by comparing rural and urban populations on various attitudinal barriers and mental health outcomes as well as identifying the unique challenges of rural mental health.

A total of 527 Australians from rural, regional and urban locations participated in an online convergent mixed-methods questionnaire. Research aims were explored using a series of multivariate analyses of variance and content analysis.

Results found both rural and regional people reported greater levels of wellbeing than urban people, with rural people reporting significantly higher levels of psychological distress than urban people. Rural and regional people also demonstrated higher levels of mental health literacy, lower levels of personal stigma and, overall, more positive attitudes to mental health than their urban counterparts. Qualitative results indicated that service accessibility was a prominent barrier for rural and regional people accessing support.

The results offer novel insights into the barriers impacting rural people's ability to seek mental health support and provide specific targets to better address mental health service access challenges in rural communities. Recommendations are made for future research and policy to focus on improving service access in rural communities.