Journal of Rural Mental Health, Vol 49(1), Jan 2025, 10-20; doi:10.1037/rmh0000277
People living in rural Australia have a significantly greater risk of suicide than those living in major cities. Barriers to mental health help-seeking have been proposed as one reason for this finding. Unique sociocultural factors influence rurality and farmer mental health help-seeking attitudes, yet whether these factors also influence mental health help-seeking in farming and nonfarming rural women is underexplored. This study investigated the relationship between mental health help-seeking attitudes and masculine gender role ideology, stoicism, mental health self-stigma, distrust of health care professionals, and mental health literacy in a farming and nonfarming rural women living in Australia. One hundred ninety farming and nonfarming rural women living in Australia participated. Data were collected through an anonymous online survey using validated measures, and exploratory multivariate analyses were applied to assess differences between farming and nonfarming rural women and the relationships among the variables of interest. Compared with nonfarming rural women, farming women scored higher on masculine gender role ideology, stoicism, and self-stigma, and lower on mental health help-seeking attitudes and mental health literacy. For farming rural women, masculinity, stoicism, and self-stigma were significantly associated with attitudes toward mental health help-seeking. For nonfarming rural women, only self-stigma, distrust, and mental health literacy were significantly associated with attitudes toward mental health help-seeking. Future research could investigate factors related to masculine gender role ideology among farming women to help shape approaches to rural interventions that address the specific needs of the two groups of women. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
