Cultural Validity of the Mental Help Seeking Attitudes Scale Among Three Racially Minoritized Groups With Chronic Pain in the United States

Abstract

The Mental Help Seeking Attitudes Scale (MHSAS) is commonly used in psychological research. This nine-item unidimensional scale was designed to measure how favorable or unfavorable respondents’ attitudes are toward seeking help from a mental health professional and was originally validated using a primarily White sample. To address the potential limitations of using this scale cross-culturally, we recruited participants who identified as Asian American (n = 161), Black American (n = 259), and Latine American (n = 259) to take the MHSAS, and then we ran confirmatory factor analyses. Our samples also all consisted of individuals with chronic pain. The original measure validation demonstrated excellent overall model fit; however, all three of our non-White samples had only adequate overall model fit and factor loading values. An exploratory bifactor analysis still confirmed the unidimensional structure of the scale. These findings suggest that the MHSAS should be used cautiously in cross-cultural contexts with racially minoritized groups experiencing chronic pain.