Perceived Barriers to Accessing Counselling Services in Urban Higher Educational Institution in Bengaluru, India

The rigorous demands and expectations placed on college students, both personal and professional, can increase their vulnerability to mental health issues, yet their tendency to seek mental health counselling is still low. This study aims to explore the barriers to seeking mental health counselling made available to students by their higher educational institutions. The participants were 56 students aged 18-22 years (28 males, 28 females) who were currently enrolled in colleges in Bangalore. 17 of them were from the humanities stream, 19 were from commerce, and 20 were from the sciences. They were selected using the convenience sampling technique. Barriers to Seeking Mental Health Counseling Scale (BMHC) was administered online, and descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. The results indicated college students moderately experienced barriers to seeking college-provided mental health counselling in all six dimensions of BMHC: negative perceived value, ingroup stigma, discomfort with emotions, lack of access, lack of knowledge, and cultural barriers. Negative perceived value was most frequently considered a low barrier by participants, whereas cultural barriers were most commonly perceived as a high barrier. Compared to females, male participants reported negative perceived value and ingroup stigma as higher barriers. Participants from the humanities perceived negative perceived value as a low barrier.