Student mental health is a global concern with rates of mental illness diagnosis and need for mental health services increasing rapidly. This is particularly profound in the context of post-secondary students as a reported 75% of first mental illness diagnosis come between the ages of 16 to 25 years old, making the post-secondary years especially vulnerable (Mental Health Commision Canada, 2016). This report also identifies fifty percent of post-secondary students report using campus mental health services and students report experiencing a variety of different alterations in mental health including: moderate to tremendous stress levels, anxiety, depression, suicidality, self-injury among others reasons.
Mental health literacy (MHL) is a complex concept looking at knowledge and attitude towards mental health first defined by Jorm et. al. (1997) and has undergone further revisions and additions over time to include more detail. MHL includes: awareness of prevention of mental disorders, recognition of when mental disorder is developing, knowledge of help-seeking options and treatments available, knowledge of self-help strategies, and mental health first aid skills to support others (Jorm, 2012; Jorm, 2015). Other authors have defined it with slight variation in wording but for the most part the same concepts align (O’Connor, Casey, 2015; Kutcher, Wei, Coniglio, 2016 ) This broad concept of MHL thus calls on knowledge, application, attitude, and strategizing ability and requires theoretical knowledge and practical application. A person may have skill or knowledge in one aspect of this concept and be lacking ability in other domains- a common example might be strong foundational knowledge of mental health disorder but an inadequate knowledge of resources for assistance for practical purposes.
Based upon the prevalence and increasing rates of mental illness within the post-secondary environment combined with the complexity of MHL a literature scan was completed to determine the MHL literacy levels of post-secondary educators. With such a high prevalence of mental health challenges faculty members are likely to interact with students regularly who exhibit subtle or overt symptoms of mental illness (Kucirka, 2017). With regular interactions it would be important to better understand faculty member’s MHL. During the initial literature search was it was discovered that little has been published within this population. Studies have been published on MHL of other populations for example K-12 educators and social workers but this doesn’t necessarily translate to post-secondary educators.
Methods:
As such, the investigators determined it was relevant to conduct an exploratory study to investigate the research question “What is the level of mental health literacy of post-secondary educators?”. This question is being investigated with the use of two validated tools and a demographic baseline survey. The first tool is the multicomponent mental health literacy measure tool (Jung, Sternburg, Davis,2016) which examines respondent’s’ knowledge, beliefs and resources. Secondly, the use of the Mental Health Promoting Knowledge tool (MHPK-10) (Bjorsen et. al, 2017) which address self-help and self-management practices. The final component which is a demographic baseline survey will assist with identifying faculty reports of prevalence and frequency of encounters with students with mental health challenges.
Results:
Research data collection has an anticipated end point of May, 2019. Data analysis will begin immediately following that preliminary results will be available for poster presentation at Congress. Anticipated results would be able to identify a baseline score of mental health literacy of post-secondary educators as well as further information regarding what domains of mental health literacy more attention could be focused to improved competence and confidence in ability.
Conclusion:
The highlights of this poster will be expanding the definition of and importance of MHL, exploring the global prevalence of mental health challenges and mental illness, and providing a summary of preliminary data on what the baseline level of MHL post-secondary educators in Canada is.
For us, this project will serve as the background of a larger research program of study and for visitors to the poster we hope it will stimulate good thoughts, questions and discussions both with us at the congress venue and in their everyday work practice. While the mental illness of students is increasing in prevalence, students eventually graduate and enter nursing practice, thus even for congress attendees who are not working in the education field there will be take home messages and useful information.