Published in:
01-06-2016 | Editorial
Enhancing mental health literacy in young people
Authors:
Stan Kutcher, Yifeng Wei, Susana Costa, Ricardo Gusmão, Norbert Skokauskas, Andre Sourander
Published in:
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
|
Issue 6/2016
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Excerpt
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health literacy is key to improving health outcomes for both individuals and populations [
1]. Mental health literacy (MHL), a component of health literacy can be expected to have similar impacts [
2]. Our understanding of MHL has evolved from its early development as a tool to enhance the recognition of mental disorders [
3] to a more complex consideration, consistent with the WHO’s construct of health literacy as a social determinant of health and an educationally driven intervention with demonstrated positive impact on the health outcomes of individuals and populations, as well as a vehicle that can be applied to help transform health inequities [
1,
4]. As such, MHL has been conceptualized as comprising four distinct but related components: (1) understanding how to obtain and maintain good mental health; (2) understanding mental disorders and their treatments; (3) decreasing stigma related to mental disorders; (4) enhancing help-seeking efficacy (knowing when, where, and how to obtain good mental health care and developing competencies needed for self-care) [
2,
5]. Thus, MHL provides the necessary foundation for mental health promotion, prevention, and care, and binds these essential components into a seamless construct focused on improving both mental health and mental health care outcomes rather than focusing singly on promotion of wellbeing [
3,
6,
7]. …
