Miles Rona, Rabin Laura, Krishnan Anjali, Grandoit Evan, Kloskowski Kamil
Psychology Department, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11210, USA.
Psychology Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
BMC Public Health. 2020 Nov 13;20(1):1699. doi: 10.1186/s12889-020-09696-0.
Investigating variables associated with mental health literacy in the college-age population takes us one step closer to providing intervention for this vulnerable group, where growing rates of psychological disorders are a serious public concern. This study adds to the existing literature by incorporating, within a single model, multi-faceted variables (demographic, psychological, and academic) that contribute to mental health literacy in demographically and ethnically diverse college students.
Participants were undergraduate students enrolled at nine different colleges that are part of a large, urban, public university system. A total of 1213 respondents (62.0% female, 73.3% non-white) completed an in-person assessment of mental health literacy and answered questions about demographics, college experience, and mental health experience. Data were analyzed to identify which variables best discriminated between high, mid-level, and low performers on this assessment.
Discriminant correspondence analysis revealed that the difference between high and low performers (accounting for 90.27% of the total variance) was driven by participants who had taken at least one course related to clinical psychology and who typically majored in psychology and applied health science fields. These participants were more likely to report being white, female, between the ages of 28-32, and in the fourth year or later of their undergraduate program. In addition, high performers were more likely to have been diagnosed and/or treated for a psychological disorder, have more experience with psychological disorders through personal, family, or peer history, and have families who are open to discussing mental health issues.
The main contributor to variation in mental health literacy scores was having taken a clinical psychology course, followed by majoring in psychology. Importantly, our findings identified not only the high performers, but also the low performers, for whom an increase in knowledge and awareness of mental health is crucial to overall psychological well-being. These results have important implications for the design of educational interventions aimed at improving mental health literacy at the college level, especially for students who otherwise would not have been exposed to this information from coursework or their major.
调查与大学年龄段人群心理健康素养相关的变量，能让我们离为这一弱势群体提供干预措施更近一步，心理障碍发病率不断上升是一个严重的公共问题。本研究通过在一个单一模型中纳入多方面变量（人口统计学、心理学和学术方面），为现有文献增添了内容，这些变量有助于不同人口统计学和种族背景的大学生的心理健康素养。
参与者为一所大型城市公立大学系统中九所不同学院的本科生。共有1213名受访者（62.0%为女性，73.3%为非白人）完成了心理健康素养的现场评估，并回答了有关人口统计学、大学经历和心理健康经历的问题。对数据进行分析，以确定哪些变量能最好地区分该评估中的高、中、低表现者。
判别对应分析显示，高表现者和低表现者之间的差异（占总方差的90.27%）由至少修过一门与临床心理学相关课程且通常主修心理学和应用健康科学领域的参与者驱动。这些参与者更有可能报告自己是白人、女性，年龄在28 - 32岁之间，且处于本科课程的第四年或更高年级。此外，高表现者更有可能被诊断和/或治疗过心理障碍，通过个人、家庭或同伴经历对心理障碍有更多了解，且家庭愿意讨论心理健康问题。
心理健康素养得分差异的主要因素是修过临床心理学课程，其次是主修心理学。重要的是，我们的研究结果不仅确定了高表现者，还确定了低表现者，对他们来说，提高心理健康知识和意识对整体心理健康至关重要。这些结果对旨在提高大学水平心理健康素养的教育干预设计具有重要意义，特别是对于那些原本无法从课程作业或专业中接触到此类信息的学生。
