The moderating role of subjective distress disclosure in the relationship between coping with stress and seeking psychological help

The aim of this research is to determine the moderator role of students' distress disclosure index in the relationship between students' styles of coping and the attitudes towards seeking psychological help. The sample consists of 269 students who studied in 54 different universities, departments, and grade levels in the spring semester of the 2022-2023 academic year in Türkiye. 161 students (59,85%) are females and the rest, 108 students (40,15%) are males. The data of this research was collected using the Distress Disclosure Index, Attitudes Towards Seeking Psychological Help Scale – Short Form and the Coping with Stress Scale. According to the findings of the study, it was determined that the tendency to disclose subjective distress has a full mediator role in coping with ''problem-focused'' stress and a partial mediator role in seeking "social support" in the relationship between university students' style of coping with stress and their attitudes towards seeking psychological help. Since it did not meet the prerequisites of the research, the mediating role of "avoidance style" in coping with stress was not analyzed. When we examined whether the variables investigated in the study differed according to gender, it was revealed that there was a significant difference between gender, the tendency of university students to reveal their subjective distress, their attitudes towards seeking psychological help, and their "avoidance" style in coping with stress. According to these results, it was determined that women exhibited the tendency of "self-disclosure" more frequently in their tendency to reveal their subjective distress, while men exhibited the tendency of "hiding themselves" more frequently. In the attitude towards seeking psychological help, it was seen that female participants got higher scores, thus they had more positive attitudes, and finally, it was revealed that women had higher "avoidance" style scores in coping with stress than men. There was no difference in terms of the gender of the participants in the "problem-focused" and "social" ways of coping with stress.