Determination of nurses' psychological help seeking behavior, internalized stigma and self-esteem

This study was planned to determine the relationship between seeking psychological help behaviors and self-stigma & self-esteem of nurses. The study was carried out with 488 nurses in 3 structurally different hospitals selected as educational research hospital, state and branch hospital in one city of Turkey. In the study, sociodemographic data collection form, Self-Stigma of Seeking Psychological Help Scale (SSPHS), Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (ATSPPH) and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were used. The Mann-Whitney U test or the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the scale scores according to demographic characteristics in the statistical analyzes of the study. Relations between scale scores were examined by Spearman Correlation Analysis. There was no statistically significant difference between the genders according to SSPHS and RSES scores in the study (p > 0.05). When SSPHS scores were analyzed according to education level, it was seen that high school and college graduates had higher scores than the other graduates(p < 0.05). SSPHS and RSES scores were similar according to educational level status (p > 0.05). The nurses who spent their childhood in a fragmented family had a mean ATSPPH score of 49 (min-max: 42-70) while the nurses who spent their childhood in a whole family had a higher mean ATSPPH score of 69 (min-max: 40-90) showing statistically significant difference (p < 0.05). When the relationship between RSES and SSPHS scale scores was examined, there was no statistically significant relation between the scores. A negatively weak correlation between ATSPPH and RSES & SSPHS was observed. Keywords: Self-esteem, Nurses, Self-stigma, Psychological Help Seeking