Research Information System
Journal of Counseling Psychology, vol.60, no.2, pp.303-310, 2013 (SSCI)
Researchers have found that the stigma associated with seeking therapyparticularly self-stigma can inhibit the use of psychological services. Yet, most of the research on self-stigma has been conducted in the United States. This is a considerable limitation, as the role of self-stigma in the help-seeking process may vary across cultural groups. However, to examine cross-cultural variations, researchers must first develop culturally valid scales. Therefore, this study examined scale validity and reliability of the widely used Self-Stigma of Seeking Help scale (SSOSH; Vogel, Wade, & Haake, 2006) across samples from 6 different countries (England, Greece, Israel, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States). Specifically, we used a confirmatory factor analysis framework to conduct measurement invariance analysis and latent mean comparisons of the SSOSH across the 6 sampled countries. Overall, the results suggested that the SSOSH has a similar univariate structure across countries and is sufficiently invariant across countries to be used to explore cultural differences in the way that self-stigma relates to help-seeking behavior. © 2012 American Psychological Association.