Adolescents' help-seeking behaviour in times of community crisis

Help-seeking behaviours during the 1991 Gulf War of 954 high school students were investigated. This study explored the frequency and determinants of such behaviours, in such a community crisis. Out of respondents, 7.5% expressed a need to talk with the school counsellor about their feelings. Students' tendency to ask for help from the counsellor correlated with their feelings of stress and sense of coping, as well as their evaluations of peers' feelings and coping. Students' views of their teacher's opinion of them also played a role in their decision to seek help. The study concludes that adolescents' help-seeking behaviour in this context was shaped by both situational conditions and self-evaluative factors.