Perceived Public Stigma Toward Psychological Help: Psychometric Validation of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help Among Chinese Law Students

Tingting Wang; Qi Lu Huang; Wei Li

doi:10.3390/bs15081084

Perceived Public Stigma Toward Psychological Help: Psychometric Validation of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help Among Chinese Law Students

Tingting Wang
, Qi Lu Huang
, Wei Li^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

200 Downloads (CityUHK Scholars)

Abstract

Public stigma toward psychological help-seeking is a critical barrier to mental health service utilization, particularly among university students in culturally conservative and academically demanding disciplines such as law. In China, where Confucian values emphasize social conformity and face preservation, law students may internalize societal narratives that associate mental illness with personal weakness, deterring them from accessing psychological services. This study translated and examined the psychometric properties of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help (SSRPH) among Chinese law students. A total of 1257 undergraduate law students from five universities in China participated in the study. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on a randomly selected subsample (n = 628) to examine the scale’s factor structure, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a second subsample (n = 629). Results supported a unidimensional factor structure with strong internal consistency (α = 0.82). CFA yielded a good model fit (CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.95). Significant negative correlations with help-seeking attitudes (r = −0.37, p < 0.001) supported discriminant validity. While further validation is warranted, the Chinese SSRPH appears suitable for assessing perceived public stigma in legal education contexts and may inform future research and program design in stigma reduction and mental health promotion. © 2025 by the authors.

Original language	English
Article number	1084
Number of pages	10
Journal	Behavioral Sciences
Volume	15
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15081084
Publication status	Published - 10 Aug 2025

Funding

This research was funded by The 2024 Teaching Research and Reform Project of Shandong University of Political Science and Law, titled “Enhancing the Quality of New Liberal Arts Curriculum through Project-Based Learning under the Integration of Science and Education: A Case Study of Digital Legal Studies.”; The 2025 General Project of the Shandong Provincial Humanities and Social Sciences Fund, titled “Empowering Cross-Regional Judicial Collaboration with Big Data to Support High-Quality Development in the Yellow River Basin of Shandong.”; The 2025 Jinan Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project (Project No. JNSK2025C084), titled “Promoting Smart Judicial Cross-Regional Collaboration to Support High-Quality Development in the Yellow River Basin: A Case Study of Jinan City.”.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Research Keywords

public stigma
help-seeking attitudes
Chinese
law students
scale validation

Publisher's Copyright Statement

This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Access Output

10.3390/bs15081084

292697945.pdfFinal Published version, 646 KBLicence: CC BY

Other Access Options

Check CityUHK Library

Permanent Link

Right click to copy link

Cite this

@article{8d2e49c22da642a39681fc33dabbb110,

title = "Perceived Public Stigma Toward Psychological Help: Psychometric Validation of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help Among Chinese Law Students",

abstract = "Public stigma toward psychological help-seeking is a critical barrier to mental health service utilization, particularly among university students in culturally conservative and academically demanding disciplines such as law. In China, where Confucian values emphasize social conformity and face preservation, law students may internalize societal narratives that associate mental illness with personal weakness, deterring them from accessing psychological services. This study translated and examined the psychometric properties of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help (SSRPH) among Chinese law students. A total of 1257 undergraduate law students from five universities in China participated in the study. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on a randomly selected subsample (n = 628) to examine the scale{\textquoteright}s factor structure, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a second subsample (n = 629). Results supported a unidimensional factor structure with strong internal consistency (α = 0.82). CFA yielded a good model fit (CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.95). Significant negative correlations with help-seeking attitudes (r = −0.37, p < 0.001) supported discriminant validity. While further validation is warranted, the Chinese SSRPH appears suitable for assessing perceived public stigma in legal education contexts and may inform future research and program design in stigma reduction and mental health promotion. {\textcopyright} 2025 by the authors.",

keywords = "public stigma, help-seeking attitudes, Chinese, law students, scale validation",

author = "Tingting Wang and Huang, \{Qi Lu\} and Wei Li",

year = "2025",

month = aug,

day = "10",

doi = "10.3390/bs15081084",

language = "English",

volume = "15",

journal = "Behavioral Sciences",

issn = "2076-328X",

publisher = "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)",

number = "8",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Perceived Public Stigma Toward Psychological Help

T2 - Psychometric Validation of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help Among Chinese Law Students

AU - Wang, Tingting

AU - Huang, Qi Lu

AU - Li, Wei

PY - 2025/8/10

Y1 - 2025/8/10

N2 - Public stigma toward psychological help-seeking is a critical barrier to mental health service utilization, particularly among university students in culturally conservative and academically demanding disciplines such as law. In China, where Confucian values emphasize social conformity and face preservation, law students may internalize societal narratives that associate mental illness with personal weakness, deterring them from accessing psychological services. This study translated and examined the psychometric properties of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help (SSRPH) among Chinese law students. A total of 1257 undergraduate law students from five universities in China participated in the study. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on a randomly selected subsample (n = 628) to examine the scale’s factor structure, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a second subsample (n = 629). Results supported a unidimensional factor structure with strong internal consistency (α = 0.82). CFA yielded a good model fit (CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.95). Significant negative correlations with help-seeking attitudes (r = −0.37, p < 0.001) supported discriminant validity. While further validation is warranted, the Chinese SSRPH appears suitable for assessing perceived public stigma in legal education contexts and may inform future research and program design in stigma reduction and mental health promotion. © 2025 by the authors.

AB - Public stigma toward psychological help-seeking is a critical barrier to mental health service utilization, particularly among university students in culturally conservative and academically demanding disciplines such as law. In China, where Confucian values emphasize social conformity and face preservation, law students may internalize societal narratives that associate mental illness with personal weakness, deterring them from accessing psychological services. This study translated and examined the psychometric properties of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help (SSRPH) among Chinese law students. A total of 1257 undergraduate law students from five universities in China participated in the study. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on a randomly selected subsample (n = 628) to examine the scale’s factor structure, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a second subsample (n = 629). Results supported a unidimensional factor structure with strong internal consistency (α = 0.82). CFA yielded a good model fit (CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.95). Significant negative correlations with help-seeking attitudes (r = −0.37, p < 0.001) supported discriminant validity. While further validation is warranted, the Chinese SSRPH appears suitable for assessing perceived public stigma in legal education contexts and may inform future research and program design in stigma reduction and mental health promotion. © 2025 by the authors.

KW - public stigma

KW - help-seeking attitudes

KW - Chinese

KW - law students

KW - scale validation

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105014375005

UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/pubmetrics.uri?eid=2-s2.0-105014375005&origin=recordpage

U2 - 10.3390/bs15081084

DO - 10.3390/bs15081084

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

C2 - 40867441

SN - 2076-328X

VL - 15

JO - Behavioral Sciences

JF - Behavioral Sciences

IS - 8

M1 - 1084

ER -

Perceived Public Stigma Toward Psychological Help: Psychometric Validation of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help Among Chinese Law Students

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Research Keywords

Publisher's Copyright Statement

Access Output

Other Access Options

Permanent Link

Other Files and Links

Fingerprint

Cite this