Depression is treatable, but many people with depression do not seek help. When studies are conducted assessing barriers to and reasons for help seeking, it is common to combine responses from people with and without depressive symptomatology.

The goal of the current study was to assess if people with and without heightened levels of depressive symptomatology perceive reasons/barriers similarly.

Prior to the main study, two pilot studies were conducted which resulted in sets of 10 reasons and barriers rated as those participants were most aware of as influencing their decision to seek help for depression. Participants (n = 520) rated the importance of these reasons/barriers to their decision regarding help seeking. Two groups were created based on their Beck depression inventory-II score: no to minimal and mild to severe depressive symptomatology.

Although, the order across the reasons/barriers varied between the groups, the most important reason for both groups was seeking help to enjoy life again, while the most important barrier for both groups was negative side effects of depression medication. The no to minimal group rated reasons to seek help as significantly more important to their help seeking decision process than the mild to severe group, while the mild to severe group rated barriers to seeking help significantly more important to their help seeking decision process than the no to minimal group.

Greater importance of barriers to seeking help could partially explain why help seeking decreases as depressive symptomatology increases. Interventions should increase the importance of reasons to seek help.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.