though the role of mass media in health promotion tasks have been widely documented, and that regarding mental health, information about prevention, treatment and successful cases of integration is rather relevant to reduce the social stigma individuals with mental disorders must bear there are scarce publications about the issue in the Colombian press. For this correlational-descriptive study, 545 journalistic notes about mental health published in 7 Colombian newspapers were analysed, using the contents analysis technique. In average, less than 1.5 daily journalistic notes related to the issue were published through an entire year among seven mass media, that is, barely 0.2 in every newspaper. Mental health themes which are more published by newspapers are addictions (65.5%) and suicidal behaviours (22.4%). Besides, it is significant that from the 545 texts analysed, only 15 have made an adequate processing of the specialized terms so that they were understood by readers RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 72 -Pages 114 to 128Research |