2026 Volume 74 Issue 2 Pages 80-95
The present article reports the development of Japanese versions of the Mental Health Seeking Attitudes Scale (MHSAS) and the Mental Health Seeking Intention Scale (MHSIS), which assess attitudes and intentions toward seeking help for psychological problems. After the scales were translated following cross-cultural adaptation guides, they were completed online by 502 university students (360 women, 142 men; average age 21.4 years) and 542 general adults (278 women, 262 men; average age 42.6 years) recruited by two companies. Of those, 63% of the university students and 77% of the general adults participated in the follow-up survey four weeks later. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a one-factor structure for both scales, consistent with the original versions; measurement invariance across groups was also confirmed. As hypothesized, both scales showed significant positive correlations with existing measures of help-seeking attitudes and intentions, and significant negative correlations with measures of public stigma and self-stigma. In addition, the MHSAS was positively associated with the MHSIS, and the MHSIS significantly predicted actual help-seeking behavior from professionals four weeks later. Test-retest reliability over a four-week interval was adequate. These findings suggest that the Japanese versions of the MHSAS and MHSIS are reliable and valid tools for assessing help-seeking attitudes and intentions in Japanese people.
