Mental health, mental illness and psychological help seeking in St. Lucia: An exploration of young adult men's understanding using thematic analysis
There is a need to understand the psychology of Caribbean people, particularly Afro Caribbean men, in order to recognise and meet their mental health needs, within both a Caribbean and a non majority population context. This research adds to the much needed Caribbean mental health literature pool; using a qualitative methodology to explore how young adult St. Lucian men (age 18 40 years) made sense of the concepts of mental health, mental illness and psychological help seeking. A thematic analysis of the data, found stigma played an important role in participants understanding of mental health and how they relate to people who are deemed as mentally ill. Help seeking was seen as a feminine behaviour which participants interpreted as weak and therefore did not fit with their ideas of being 'a man' Maintaining a favourable image and adhering to masculinity ideals, such as being stoic and strong, was a common thread throughout the participants' narratives; leading to conflict between their desire to get help and the fear of negative evaluation if they actually seek help. Participants accounts reflected a reluctance to describe any of their experiences as mental health related and also desire to dissociate themselves from anything or anyone associated with the word 'mental' due to the influence of stigma. Participants talked about fear of mental health services, with the salient feature of this fear directed towards the perceived mental health treatment of the mentally ill in St. Lucia. This fear was not as a result of the impact of racism or discrimination as have often been found in men from ethnic minority backgrounds in non majority populations. The need for mental health education to reduce the stigma and mental health promotion to increase awareness of the importance of mental well being, was clearly evident in participants' narratives. These findings therefore, have significant implications for policy makers, mental health promoters and practitioners both locally and internationally.