Association Journals
Constructing Military Stigma Scale for Japanese and Relevant Factors Affecting Help-Seeking for Mental-Health Specialists
Shunsuke OKAMOTO(National Defense Academy of Japan)
Shinichiro SUGANUMA(National Defense Academy of Japan)
Hitoshi KAWANO(National Defense Academy of Japan)
In order to promote help-seeking of Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF) personnel, we examined 263 SDF personnel and conducted a pass-analysis by structural equation modeling of various factors affecting their help-seeking attitudes and intentions, including two types of stigmata: social and selfstigma. Before the analysis, we constructed a Japanese version of the Military Stigma Scale, consisting of 10 items, with a sufficient level of reliability and validity. As a result of analysis, we confirmed relations among help-seeking attitudes, help-seeking intentions, and other factors. As suggested by Vogel et al. (2007), social stigma positively affected self-stigma, while self-stigma negatively affected helpseeking attitudes, and help-seeking attitudes positively affected help-seeking intentions of SDF personnel. On the other hand, we found some unexpected effects never confirmed in previous studies. That is, negative direct effects of social stigma on help-seeking attitudes, and positive direct effects of social stigma on help-seeking intentions.
Keyword : help-seeking, scale, stigma, military, self-defense force