Design thinking to promote mental health literacy for higher education students

This chapter resulted from the monitoring throughout a semester (from September 2021 to February 2022) of a group of students and professors/facilitators, from different areas of knowledge, who participated in the Demola International Project. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how it can become feasible to apply the design thinking (DT) process to health contexts, with the challenge: promoting mental health literacy in higher education students on the route of promoting positive mental health. The solution to promoting mental health and preventing mental illness is to increase health literacy. In this sense, the concerns of this chapter are to find solutions to improve the low mental health literacy of higher education students and to promote their mental health, acting early in the diagnosis of mental illness. This solution was identified using the design thinking process, IDEO’s 3I’s model, making it possible to apply low-cost strategies and encourage students’ autonomy and empowerment, thus creating less dependence on external intervention.