UC Irvine

Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are more prevalent in the general population than psychotic disorders and have been associated with increased risk for later psychotic disorders and perceived need for mental health treatment. Studies examining barriers to care among youth and young adults experiencing PLEs have reported that stigma, beliefs about care, and cost of services are among some of the most commonly reported barriers. The majority of the relevant literature in this area is based on international samples (i.e., not from the United States), which may not fully generalize to US samples given the differences in health care systems. The current study sought to explore the associations between PLEs and perceived need for care, interest in care, and barriers to care among young adults living in the United States. Participants (n = 931) were recruited from two universities and completed an online measure of mental health care utilization (MHCU) and the PRIME. PLEs were significantly and positively associated with self-perceived need for care, need for care perceived by others, and interest in seeking mental health care (all ps < .05). Individuals reporting PLEs above a pre-established clinical cutoff were significantly more likely to endorse stigma as a barrier to care than those without PLEs. All results remained statistically significant when age, gender identity, and race were entered as covariates. Although PLEs were statistically significantly associated with all MHCU outcome variables, PLEs alone accounted for a small portion of the variance or had small effect sizes, suggesting that though PLEs do impact MHCU, PLEs are not the only factor impacting MHCU. Future work should seek to explore how PLEs and MHCU change longitudinally, in addition to exploring these variables in community samples to increase generalizability of the results.