(PS9-81) Does Cultural Identification and Grief Processing Inform Help Seeking After the Loss of a Love One?

The exploration of cultural identity and its influence on the grieving and bereavement process is a growing focus. Grief processing is the successful working through (e.g., thinking about and expressing thoughts, memories, and emotions) of a loss. How cultural identification may influence help-seeking after the loss of a loved one is important to study given the multicultural nature of the United States. It may be that individuals with stronger cultural identification rely on the traditional norms and practices of their particular culture rather than looking to outside, professional help. We were interested in exploring both if the strength of cultural identity was associated with beliefs about the appropriateness of seeking help in the context of grief and if the various ways people may process grief were differentially related to the inclination to seek professional help following loss. As part of a larger study, a total of 358 participants (128 young adults and 230 older adults) were presented with vignettes depicting depressive symptoms one year after loss and also completed the Grief Processing Scale (Bonnano, 2005) and items about cultural identity. The Grief Processing Scale assesses 5 factors: (thinking, talking, searching for meaning, having positive memories, and expressing feelings about the deceased). Linear regression analysis was used to explore how aspects of the grieving process and cultural identity predicted the intention to seek help. Intention to seek help was operationalized by informing participants to imagine they were the vignette’s protagonist and indicate how likely they were to seek services. Results indicated that talking about the loss with family was a significant predictor of help-seeking, β = .290, p = < .001, and accounted for 9% of the variance in help-seeking. Conversely, culture (β = -0.42, p =.460), talking with friends (β =.044 , p=.512), and thinking about the loss (β=.043, p =.509) were unrelated to help seeking. This suggests that individuals who process the grief of losing a loved one with their family are also more likely to seek help. In contrast, thinking privately about the loss or talking with friends is not related to the likelihood of seeking services.  The null relation for culture suggests that therapy is equally acceptable across levels of cultural identity and referrals and recommendations for therapy should be provided to all individuals.