Mental health literacy has been defined as "knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders which aid their recognition, management and prevention. Mental health literacy includes the ability to recognize specific disorders; knowing how to seek mental health information; knowledge of risk factors and causes, of self-treatments, and of professional help available; and attitudes that promote recognition and appropriate help-seeking". The concept of mental health literacy was derived from health literacy, which aims to increase patient knowledge about physical health, illnesses, and treatments.
Framework Mental health literacy has three major components: recognition, knowledge, and attitudes. A conceptual framework of mental health literacy illustrates the connections between components, and each is conceptualized as an area to target for measurement or intervention. While some researchers have focused on a single component, others have focused on multiple and/or the connection between components. For example, a researcher may focus solely on improving recognition of disorders through an education program, whereas another researcher may focus on integrating all three components into one program.
Recognition Recognition can be broken down into symptom or illness recognition. Symptom recognition is the ability to detect beliefs, behaviors, and other physical manifestations of mental illness, without knowing explicitly which disorder they link to. Specific illness recognition is the ability to identify the presentation of a disorder, such as major depressive disorder.
The recognition of difference between knowledge and attitudes is a crucial part of the mental health literacy framework. While some efforts have focused on promoting knowledge, other researchers have argued that changing attitudes by reducing stigma is a more prolific way of creating meaningful change in mental healthcare utilization. Overall, both approaches have benefits for improving outcomes.
Public recognition Public knowledge about physical disease and health are often recognized and widely accepted but knowledge about mental health literacy is comparably neglected. Many people cannot recognize mental health disorders or different psychological distress. If mental health literacy doesn't improve, it may continue to neglect mental health care, and feeling denied of self-help and support from community.
Knowledge Knowledge is the largest component of mental health literacy, and important topics in mental health include:
How to get information: the networks and systems individuals use to get information about mental disorders. This may include friends, family, educators, or broader sources, such as entertainment or social media. Risk factors: what factors put individuals at greatest risk for specific mental health disorders? Risk factors can be unemployment, low income, lack of education, discrimination, and violence. Self-treatment or self-help: what are the best things individuals can do to help themselves recover without consulting with professionals, including the use of self-help books and media? However, many self-treatments are quite ineffective and even harmful due to a lack of knowledge.
Attitudes Attitudes are studied in two sub-components: attitudes about mental disorders, or persons with mental disorders, and attitudes about seeking professional help or treatment. Attitudes can vary greatly by individual, and can often be difficult to measure or target with intervention. Nonetheless, a large body of research literature exists on both sub-components, though not always explicitly tied to the mental health literacy. Recent research recognizes the varying attitudes across mental health professionals towards prognosis, long-term outcomes and likelihood of discrimination as more negative than those of the public. The attitudes of mental health professionals also differ towards interventions, but this variability is usually related to professional orientation.
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