Stigma toward receiving psychological help remains a major barrier to service use in rural and low-resource settings, yet little is known about how such stigma is transmitted within families. This study examined the factorial validity, measurement invariance, and intergenerational associations of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help among 147 Filipino family triads (fathers, mothers, and their emerging-adult children) residing in rural communities. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the one-factor structure of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help across all groups. Measurement invariance testing supported configural, metric, and scalar invariance across fathers, mothers, and emerging-adult offspring, indicating that the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help functions comparably across family roles. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that both fathers’ and mothers’ stigma independently predicted emerging adults’ stigma after controlling for gender, explaining 41% of the variance. Findings highlight the family’s central role in shaping emerging adults’ help-seeking attitudes and emphasize the need for family-inclusive and culturally grounded antistigma interventions in rural mental health programs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
15 Apr 2026
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