A-Systematic Review of the Level of Mental Health Literacy Among University Students Regarding Seeking Support From Counsellors in the UK

[摘要] Aims. Introduction: Mental health literacy (MHL) is defined as“one’s knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders”(Nishida-Hikiji et al., 2021). Additionally, it includes the capability to recognise specific disorders, distinguish risk factors andcauses, recognise self-treatments and available professional help,and it is an attitude that encourages recognition and appropriatehelp-seeking (Jorm et al., 1997). Background: In the UK mentalhealth problems are one of the main public health issues as itaffects one in four individuals. It specifically has a high prevalenceamong university students which is between the ages of 16–24years (Kessler et al., 2005)Methods. The study design used for this study was a systematicliterature review in which data were collected from PubMed,EBSCO and ScienceDirect using specific keywords in theadvanced search. The amount of papers found were 953 afterabstract screening for keywords only 34 papers were left andthen final abstract and full-text article screening for the inclusionand exclusion criteria was done leaving it with only 8 papers. Aquality assessment was done for the eight papers using CASPtool for RCT papers and EPHH tool for cross-sectional papers.Results. The findings showed that there are different levels ofMHL between university students depending on their gender,education year, faculty and ethnicity. It was also found that theprofessional help seeking behaviour is not significantly different between genders but there was a difference regarding those identifying themselves as bisexuals despite them having high MHLscores.Conclusion. In conclusion the MHL of university students in theUK was found to be lower than those in Australia thus stating thatmore attention should be drawn to the issue and the need for easily accessible counselling services should be provided and promoted by universities. So that students can know about theirexistence and make good use of it whenever needed.

[学科分类] 计算机科学（综合）