The Effect of Self-Stigma of Seeking Help on Depression Among College Students: The Mediating Effect of Perfectionistic Concerns Moderated by AI Counseling Use Intention

Le résumé fourni par la source

This study examined the mediating role of evaluative concerns and perfectionism and the moderating role of intention to use artificial intelligence (AI) counseling in the relationship between self-stigma of seeking psychological help and depression among university students.A cross-sectional online self-report survey was conducted with 300 students enrolled in or on a leave of absence from four-year universities in Korea.The participants completed measures assessing self-stigma of seeking help, evaluative concerns about perfectionism, intention to use AI counseling, and depressive symptoms.The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analyses, and mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation analyses with SPSS 27.0 and PROCESS Macro 4.1.The results showed that self-stigma of seeking psychological help was positively associated with both evaluative concerns perfectionism and depression.Evaluative concerns perfectionism was also positively associated with depression and partially mediated the relationship between self-stigma and depression.In addition, intention to use AI counseling significantly moderated the association between evaluative concerns perfectionism and depression.Specifically, the positive association between evaluative concerns perfectionism and depression became stronger as intention to use AI counseling increased.The index of moderated mediation was also significant, indicating that the indirect association between self-stigma and depression through evaluative concerns perfectionism varied across levels of AI counseling use intention.These findings suggest that intention to use AI counseling may function as a contextual indicator of digital help-seeking characteristics rather than solely as a protective factor.University counseling services should therefore consider self-stigma, maladaptive perfectionism, depressive symptoms, and AI counseling use intention together when assessing students' mental health needs.The cautious integration of AI counseling into stepped-care systems may also facilitate appropriate referral to professional mental health services.

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