Developmental differences among students who seek and do not seek psychological/psychiatric support

Abstract

The construction of autonomy, the capacity to establish love relationships, and self-esteem consolidation are late adolescents' and young adults' developmental tasks. This study analyzes differences between young people having and not having sought psychological/psychiatric support within the last year, with respect to their degree of resolution of those tasks, and to their depressive mood level. With this purpose, 2 scales evaluating autonomy construction and 3 scales evaluating the capacity to establish love relationships, developed by the authors, as well as M. Rosenberg's global self-esteem scale and Zung's depression scale were applied to a sample of 525 university students from different higher education establishments in Lisbon. The results show the existence of significant differences in all such variables. The implications for psychological intervention with university students are studied. 

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v14i2.512