Help-seeking attitudes, stigma and artificial intelligence counseling preferences among university students

Table 1 Demographic characteristics of participants and their use of artificial intelligence psychological support tools, mean ± SD/n (%)

Characteristics
Age	20.9 ± 2.28
Gender
Male	153 (48.9)
Female	160 (51.1)
Only child status
Only child	126 (40.3)
Not only child	187 (59.7)
Family location
Town	226 (72.2)
Rural	87 (27.8)
Family economic status
Poor	29 (9.3)
Average	204 (65.2)
Good	80 (25.5)
AI tool usage
Ever used AI tools (general purposes)	299 (95.5)
Ever used AI tools for psychological support	101 (32.3)
Primary AI psychological help tool
DeepSeek	50 (49.5)
Doubao	43 (42.6)
Others	8 (7.9)
Usage frequency
Daily	6 (5.9)
Weekly	12 (11.9)
Monthly	3 (3.0)
As needed	30 (29.7)
Once/twice	50 (49.5)
Duration per session
< 15 minutes	86 (85.1)
15-30 minutes	10 (9.9)
> 30 minutes	5 (5.0)

AI: Artificial intelligence.

Table 2 Fit indices for latent profile models of help-seeking attitudes and stigma

Model	AIC	BIC	aBIC	Entropy	BLRT P value	LMR P value	Class probability (%)
1	6828.86	6858.83	6833.46				1
2	6608.45	6657.15	6615.91	0.73	< 0.001	< 0.001	0.53/0.47
3	6493.93	6561.36	6504.27	0.88	< 0.001	0.004	0.20/0.36/0.44
4	6410.99	6497.15	6424.20	0.90	< 0.001	0.086	0.32/0.42/0.06/0.20

AIC: Akaike information criterion; BIC: Bayesian information criterion; aBIC: Adjusted Bayesian information criterion; BLRT: Bootstrap Likelihood Ratio Test; LMR: Lo-Mendell-Rubin adjusted likelihood ratio test.

Table 3 Mental health status and artificial intelligence help-seeking preferences by latent profile (based on help-seeking attitudes and stigma), mean ± SD/n (%)

	Low willingness and high stigma (n = 114)	Moderate willingness and moderate stigma (n = 137)	High willingness and low stigma (n = 62)	F/χ2 value	P value
PHQ-9 total score	6.55 ± 6.16	3.94 ± 4.44	2.71 ± 3.31	14.502	< 0.001
0-4	45 (39.5)	88 (64.2)	44 (71.0)	20.066	< 0.001
≥ 5	69 (60.5)	49 (35.8)	18 (29.0)
GAD-7 total score	5.21 ± 5.26	2.87 ± 4.04	2.13 ± 3.10	13.129	< 0.001
0-4	55 (48.2)	105 (76.6)	47 (75.8)	25.632	< 0.001
≥ 5	59 (51.8)	32 (23.4)	15 (24.2)
Ever used AI tools for psychological support
No	67 (58.8)	102 (74.5)	43 (69.4)	7.093	0.029
Yes	47 (41.2)	35 (25.5)	19 (30.6)
Future help-seeking preference
AI-preferred	29 (25.4)	19 (13.9)	3 (4.8)	14.997	0.005
Balanced	24 (21.1)	26 (19.0)	17 (27.4)
Human-preferred	61 (53.5)	92 (67.1)	42 (67.8)