The association of mental health literacy with mental well-being and help-seeking in young people: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Problem: It is important to determine the relationship between mental health literacy (MHL), mental well-being and help seeking in young people in terms of guiding research and practices related to MHL.

Eligibility criteria: A literature scan of the databases of Web of Science, PubMed, Science Direct, EBSCOhost CINAHL Complete, Cochrane Library, Springer Link, Scopus, Wiley Online Library, Ovid, Taylor & Francis and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global was conducted in May 2022 and April 2023 without any year limitations.

Sample: A total of 12 studies with 4659 young people were included. Data synthesis was performed using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to calculate the effect size.

Results: It was concluded that there was no correlation between MHL and mental well-being in young people (p > 0.05, r = 0.06, 95% CI = -0.05 to 0.16). A positive correlation was found between MHL with help seeking attitude (p < 0.01, r = 0.48, 95% CI = 0.30 to 0.63) and help-seeking intention (p < 0.01, r = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.12 to 0.34).

Conclusion: While there was a medium effect size between MHL and help seeking attitude in young people, there was a weak effect size between MHL and help seeking intention. No studies were found examining the relationship between MHL and help-seeking behavior in young people.

Implications: Nurses may provide support for young people in help seeking by giving education and counselling on MHL in schools and health institutions, and by creating reliable and easily accessible sources of information.

Keywords: Help-seeking; Literacy; Mental health; Mental well-being; Systematic review; Young people; meta-analysis.