Facilitators of professional psychological help-seeking among university students: a narrative review from an individual–environment dual-dimensional perspective

Abstract

The persistent disparity between the high prevalence of mental health problems among university students and their low rates of professional psychological help-seeking constitutes a well-documented “help-seeking paradox.” Research has primarily focused on barriers, while the systematic integration of facilitators remains underdeveloped. In particular, the field lacks a theoretical framework that can account for the dynamic interplay between individual and environmental factors. Using a narrative review approach, this article conducts a thematic analysis and theoretical synthesis of the extant literature. The findings indicate that key facilitators of professional help-seeking among university students can be organized into two overarching dimensions. Individual readiness encompasses three sub-dimensions (mental health literacy and help-seeking attitudes, emotional awareness and regulation, and personality traits and self-efficacy), and environmental driving force comprises three levels: the microsystem (family support and peer modeling), the mesosystem (campus culture and service accessibility), and the macrosystem (cultural values and media narratives). Building on this foundation, the review further examines the mechanisms underlying help-seeking initiation, moderation, and feedback, elucidating the synergistic enhancement or antagonistic inhibition that characterizes the interaction between individual readiness and environmental driving force. The proposed Individual Readiness–Environmental Driving Force integrative model conceptualizes professional help-seeking among university students as a process dynamically shaped by multilevel, multifactor influences, thereby providing a theoretical basis for developing systematic mental health intervention strategies for higher education settings.