The need for assessing mental health literacy among teachers: an overview

Abstract

Background: The magnitude of mental disorders is a growing public health concern. According to World Health Organization (WHO) reports, one out of five children suffer from a disabling mental illness. Majority of mental illnesses start during the adolescent period. Management of mental illnesses start from recognizing the needy adolescent and providing appropriate therapy and support. Most of the children and adolescents are students who spend almost half of their active time in schools under observation of their teachers. Teachers interact with students daily and can spot the changes in their behavior before they develop full-blown symptoms. Hence, teachers can be a major resource of importance in providing basic mental health services. The teacher’s ability to identify the early signs of mental illness in adolescent students can be considered as the most critical and neglected area. Majority of the studies are conducted in the community or adolescent students and much less attention has been paid to the mental health literacy of educators, who are important role models and youth influencers in addressing mental health literacy. The scenario in India in this regard is highly disappointing with few studies done among teachers.

Preferred sources of help for mental health problems among Chilean adolescents: a descriptive study

“…This study points to high school teachers as potential sources of help to which Chilean adolescents would be willing to turn when faced with mental health concerns or problems. As similar results have already been observed in other studies 34 , we should focus on increasing teachers' knowledge of mental health issues and sensitizing them on their role in help seeking by adolescents with mental health problems in our setting.…”

Assessing the Mental Health Literacy of Secondary School Educators

“…Nevertheless, this should not be taken as a reason to be complacent. As one study points out, there is variability in the general mental health knowledge of school staff (Venkataraman, Patil, and Balasundaram, 2019).…”

“…It makes perfect sense that the participants obtained the lowest score on the risk-factor knowledge scale because most of the information related to this domain are highly technical, to the point of being medical jargons. As one scholar points out, one drawback of the definition and components of mental health literacy is that it is restricted to a medical model (Venkataraman, Patil, and Balasundaram, 2019). Besides, aside from being able to identify students who are displaying problematic behavior and referring such behaviors to a mental health professional, it is beyond the responsibility of teachers to take note of every risk factor that goes with every mental illness.…”

“…Other scholars point out that teachers may be the "linchpins" in school-based delivery efforts. Their role could include the delivery of classroom-based programs and the reinforcement of these programs to generate positive and sustained effects to promote mental health (Venkataraman, Patil, and Balasundaram, 2019). Nevertheless, existing researches on mental health literacy does not include practicing educators.…”

Portrait of mental health literacy in schools: Knowledge exploration of counseling teachers

“…Teachers can be an essential primary source for providing basic mental health services in schools, considering that children and adolescents spend more time in school (Venkataraman et al, 2019). In addition, mental health literacy mastered by the teachers can be a tool to detect early symptoms of disorders in students so that students can get fast assistance (Venkataraman et al, 2019). Miller et al (2019) find that literacy of depressive disorders owned by teachers is related to the literacy of students' depressive disorders.…”