The mediating role of attitude toward help-seeking in relationship between psychological symptoms and professional dispositions of the psychological counselor candidates

This study aimed to investigate the mediating roles of the psychological counselor candidates` attitudes toward help-seeking in the relationship between their psychological symptoms and professional disposition. Moreover, the study described the candidates` attitudes toward help-seeking, professional disposition, and psychological symptoms. In addition, the study examined whether the candidates` professional dispositions varied in terms of their gender, reasons for choosing the Guidance and Psychological Counseling degree, and year of study in the degree. This research was conducted using the relational model, a quantitative research tool. Data were collected by using Attitudes Toward Seeking Psychological Professional Help Scale-Short Form for counseling candidates' attitudes towards help seeking; Brief Symptom Inventory for counseling candidates' psychological symptom levels; Professional Disposition Scale for Counselor Candidate for counseling candidates' professional dispositions; and Personal Information Form that created by the researcher was used to collect information on the study group`s demographic characteristics and categorical variables. The study group consisted of 785 (563 women and 222 men) undergraduate students of the Guidance and Psychological Counseling degree studying at three different state universities in the spring term of 2019-2020. The participants` ages ranged between 18 and 36. In the research, the mediating effect was tested with SPSS Process Macro 3.5.2 and the bootstrapping confidence interval were calculated for the significance of the mediating effect. Descriptive statistics and correlation analyses were performed with the SPSS 20 package program. The t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the research sub problems. In order to test the homogeneity of the variances, Levene Test was used, and Scheffe Test was conducted to determine which group caused the significant differences as a result of one-way analyses of variance. The findings showed that attitudes toward psychological help-seeking played a mediator role in the relationship between the counseling candidates' psychological symptoms and their professional disposition. The study also demonstrated that; The psychological counseling candidates had high attitude towards psychological help-seeking levels. The psychological counseling candidates had psychological symptoms at a lower frequency. The findings showed that the candidates had high professional disposition levels. The results pointed out that women candidates and ones who chose the Psychological Counseling degree because of its suitability to their personality had significantly higher disposition levels. The findings were discussed in the scope of the related literature. Based on the findings, implications were provided for future studies. Keywords: Attitude toward help-seeking, psychological symptoms, professional dispositions, counseling education, mediating role