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This paper aims to investigate the help-seeking behaviour of users during their information-seeking in a digital library, studying the kind of help-seeking situations, help requests and using help resources with different interactive levels. For this purpose, users’ help-seeking behaviour (postgraduate students at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad) was investigated based on different stages of Marchionini’s adapted model.

This research was performed using the mixed method. In total, 38 postgraduate students at Ferdowsi University were selected by Stratified Purposive Sampling method as samples. Selecting a digital library based on considered factors, preparing help resources and designing research scenario were made as the preparation stages of performing the study. The tools used for collecting and analysing data were questionnaires, think aloud protocol and Morae software.

Some of the considerable results of this research were recording the help-seeking signs in all four main stages of the adapted information-seeking model. However, in the search stage, in which a user enters the search process practically, the need for help-seeking was recorded more than it in other stages. Results also confirmed that most help requests by users were for executive help which were rooted in users’ knowledge shortcomings and their passivity in help-seeking process. Because of the flexibility and speed of providing responses, participants also tended to interact with more interactive and flexible help resources and assessed this interaction more useful.

According to the findings of this research, the adapted information-seeking model used in this study was completed, and a theoretical model for information-seeking in a digital library was suggested. In this model, help-seeking is considered as a supportive and complementary behaviour for information-seeking behaviour which begins in help-seeking situations and continues to solve problems in these situations.

The purpose of this review was to examine Indian research on help-seeking for mental health problems in adults.

Original Indian research studies on help-seeking for mental health, published from the year 2001−2019 were searched on PubMed, EBSCO, ProQuest and OVID using a set of relevant keywords. After applying exclusion criteria, 52 relevant research studies were identified.

The reviewed studies spanned a variety of themes such as barriers and facilitators to help-seeking, sources of help-seeking, causal attributions as well as other correlates of help-seeking, process of help-seeking and interventions to increase help-seeking. The majority of these studies were carried out in general community samples or treatment-seeking samples. Very few studies incorporated non-treatment seeking distressed samples. There is a severe dearth of studies on interventions to improve help-seeking. Studies indicate multiple barriers to seeking professional help and highlight that mere knowledge about illness and availability of professional services may be insufficient to minimize delays in professional help-seeking.

Help-seeking in the Indian context is often a family-based decision-making process. Multi-pronged help-seeking interventions that include components aimed at reducing barriers experienced by non-treatment seeking distressed persons and empowering informal support providers with knowledge and skills for encouraging professional help-seeking in their significant others may be useful.

It is well established that women face multiple barriers accessing treatment for problematic and unhealthy alcohol use, but less is known about how their interconnected problems affect how they seek help from, and access, alcohol-treatment services. This study aims to explore the dynamic nature of women’s help-seeking for problematic and unhealthy alcohol use and how this can be compounded by unsuitable treatment services, especially when women present with complex needs.

Thirteen semi-structured interviews with women who had accessed alcohol-support services were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically using the complexity theory.

For women with complex needs, the process of seeking help may trigger unpredictable behaviours, health or social problems and intermittent serial access to treatment. Current services do not always address women’s holistic needs. Unless services focus on addressing interconnected problems – including historic trauma – they may compound the complexity of women’s problems. Complexity theory offers novel insights into this process, a concept not applied to problematic and unhealthy alcohol use treatment previously.

Services should adopt the complexity-focused perspective featured in this study. While the authors acknowledge the increase in gender-responsive provision, the limitations of this study include a small sample size, the self-selecting nature of the sample and retrospective reporting. Participants were recruited and selected by service staff resulting in gatekeeping and possible sampling bias.

Services should adopt non-linear approaches to treatment. Implementing complexity approaches to treating women’s problematic and unhealthy alcohol use should capture the dynamics, complexity and non-linear nature of women’s help-seeking journeys as well as their internal and external responses that may result in relapse. The authors recommend complexity-focused, multiple-component and integrated collaborative strategies to address not only addiction but also all components of women’s needs, including past trauma.

Applying complexity-thinking to help-seeking experiences for alcohol treatment and recovery services is novel and proved useful in understanding the variety of women’s experiences and how these interact with their help-seeking behaviours, including treatment environments.

School leaders are professionals who need professional help to enable them better to cope with the ever‐changing challenges characteristic to their daily routine. Yet, in considering their hierarchical position in schools, they may be reluctant to ask for professional assistance even when help is available and needed, attempting to maintain their power and firm image. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore how school leaders cope with this assumed dilemma.

In‐depth open interviews were conducted with Israeli school principals. These interviews were structured around a set of key issues that the literature identified as being related to help‐seeking behavior.

Data indicate principals' loneliness on the job and need for professional help. Yet it appears that the threat implied in exposing one's weaknesses, lack of reliable sources of help within the formal system, personal inhibitions and fears of damaging self‐image and losing capacity to influence are barriers undermining their inclination to formally seek help. Therefore, they prefer to informally ask the assistance of lay individuals, but even then adopt various strategies such as avoidance, buffering and differentiation, attempting to prevent the assumed negative consequences associated with help‐seeking behaviors.

Theoretically, it is possible to conclude that those who are most in need due to their hierarchical position and role complexity are least likely to become involved in help‐seeking behaviors. Creating an organizational culture that will encourage school principals to ask for help and establishing a discreet channel within the formal system that will provide professional advice are further discussed.

Background: The central issue of this paper is whether the intuitive relation between problematic drinking and seeking professional help holds. To shed light on this issue an ecological study is done in which the relation between different drinking patterns, alcohol‐related harm, and help‐seeking behaviour at the neighbourhood level of Rotterdam, The Netherlands is examined. Two questions are posed:1. Are there geographical differences in drinking patterns, alcohol problems, problem drinking, and number of alcohol clients within the city of Rotterdam?2. Is there a relation between drinking patterns, alcohol‐related harm, and help‐seeking behaviour at the neighbourhood level?Methods: Ecological analyses are conducted based on individual data originating from a survey and person‐based registers. Respondents to the survey were classified as abstainers, light, moderate or excessive drinkers, and were classified as having alcohol‐related problems and/or being a problem drinker. Person‐based registers were used to obtain data on the number of ambulatory and clinical alcohol clients in Rotterdam. The number of ambulatory and clinical clients measured help‐seeking behaviour.Results: The intuitive reasoning that the more problematic drinkers, the more professional help is sought does not stand. No association was found between the number of alcohol clients and the percentage of excessive drinkers and problem drinkers at the neighbourhood level. Large differences between neighbourhoods in prevalence of excessive drinking, alcohol‐related problems and problem drinking were found. The number of alcohol clients, however, varied much less between neighbourhoods. A notable result is that the higher the percentage of abstainers, the lower the number of alcohol clients in a neighbourhood.Discussion: It was concluded that in all neighbourhoods the number of problem drinkers outnumbers those seeking professional help, indicating a friction between need and supply of help with respect to problematic drinking. It is hypothesised that besides drinking behaviour and drinking‐related problems individual, as well as social and cultural factors, play a role in the process of help‐seeking behaviour.

Drawing on identity theory and the symbolic interactionism perspective of identity theory, this study aims to construct a moderated mediation framework to test the effects of perceived overqualification (POQ) on knowledge sharing (KS) through professional identity threat (PIT) and the moderating role of coworkers' help-seeking behavior (CHSB).

This paper uses a quantitative multistudy research design with a combination of a scenario experiment (Study 1) and a two-wave field study among 220 supervisor-subordinate dyads at a power company in China. Using analysis of variance, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and bootstrapping method, the authors validated the research hypothesis.

In the scenario experiment study (study 1), the authors find that POQ is positively related to PIT and that CHSB negatively moderates the positive impact of POQ on PIT. The field study (study 2) replicated the above findings and found that PIT mediates the negative effect of POQ on KS. In addition, CHSB negatively moderates the mediating role of PIT between POQ and KS.

First, the current study extended the nomological network of POQ research by examining its influence on employees' KS. Second, this study empirically investigated the mediating role of PIT, which provided a new explanatory mechanism for the influence of POQ. Finally, this study demonstrates the moderating role of CHSB—a situational factor that has been ignored in previous studies.

Engaging young people in the planning of mental health promotion programmes and initiatives to meet their expressed needs continues to be a challenge for commissioners and providers. This paper reports a study to explore levels of self‐esteem and the main concerns of young people living with the legacy of conflict in the southern area of Northern Ireland, findings from which were used to inform good practice guidelines for service providers. The study highlighted that young people with low self‐esteem worry more, are more likely to engage in risk‐taking behaviour, feel more disillusioned and are less likely to access formal sources of help. Lack of trust, credibility and fears about confidentiality emerged as key barriers to help‐seeking.

The purpose of this research is to examine how entrepreneurs in new venture creations use social competence skills, such as proactive help‐seeking behaviours, to acquire knowledge.

An investigation is conducted into how entrepreneurs, in a new venture creation, acquire business and technical knowledge utilizing proactive help‐seeking behaviour. Social competence is operationalised as a construct dependent on a number of psychological and behavioural factors. As such, proactive help‐seeking behaviour suggests that individuals will recognise a deficiency in knowledge and actively search for possible solutions to solve the problem. However, there are social costs involved during the help‐seeking process. The level of social competence skill will impact the new venture because entrepreneurs do not want to appear incompetent, inferior, or dependent on another individual or organization in the environment.

It is theorised that entrepreneurs who proactively seek help will increase their acquisition of knowledge. However, individual autonomy, reputation of the help‐giver, and gender of the entrepreneur will moderate entrepreneurs to proactively seek help.

The value of the research is that it contributes to the body of literature that examines individual and firm level constructs to understand the question of why some entrepreneurs succeed while others fail. It specifically utilises the psychological construct, proactive help‐seeking behaviour, with the firm level construct, resource‐based view to understand firm formation and development.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and define the concept of student adjustment-seeking behavior, differentiating it from the related behaviors of compliance-seeking, and help-seeking.

Based on a survey of college students, documentation is provided as to the frequency of occurrence of student adjustment-seeking behavior. Also presented is empirical, albeit exploratory, evidence of a statistically significant correlation between self-reports of prior adjustment-seeking behavior, and adjustment-seeking likelihood.

In support of the study hypothesis, a moderately high, bivariate correlation was observed between adjustment-seeking likelihood and prior adjustment-seeking behavior.

Further attention to the topic and measurement of adjustment-seeking behavior would seem to be justified and continued efforts to validate the measure of adjustment-seeking likelihood may be fruitful in efforts to better understand adjustment-seeking behavior. Research recommendations, practical applications, and study limitations are discussed.

The current study examines the association between fear of bullying and actual behaviour among male prisoners (n =234: 84 adult, 86 young and 66 juvenile). It explores if developmental models of aggression can assist with understanding fear and if there is evidence to support an application of the Applied Fear Response model. Participants completed the Direct and Indirect Prisoner Checklist‐Scaled Revised and the Threat Appraisal Bullying measure. Fear of bullying did not differ across age. There were no significant relationships between fear and actual victimisation or perpetration for juveniles. Fear was a significant predictor of increased emotional and help‐seeking behaviours in juveniles, and inhibited negative behaviours in adults. Fear of bullying was highest among young and juvenile ‘bully‐victims’. The need to account for fear of victimisation as opposed to focusing solely on victimisation experience is outlined, particularly in relation to younger prisoners (i.e. young adults and juvenile offenders). The value of developmental and environmental models in understanding aggression and victim reactions are discussed.