Questionário de literacia em saúde mental (LSMq) versão jovem adulto

: um estudo multicultural entre Portugal e os EUA

Abstract

This study is part of the multicultural project “Expanding literacy in mental health” and aims to study the psychometric characteristics of the young adults’ version MHLq and the levels of mental health literacy in a multicultural perspective in Portugal and in the USA. Six-hundred and forty university students aged between 18 and 25 years old participated in this study. The MHLq - young adults was the object of study of this investigation and used to assess the participants' knowledge levels about mental health problems. Results revealed that the psychometric characteristics (factor structure and internal consistency) of the LSMq, in the North American version, were globally equivalent to those of the original version, which allowed to study and compare the levels of mental health literacy of Portuguese and North American participants. Female participants from both groups showed higher levels of mental health literacy, corroborating the literature data. Differences were found in participants' knowledge about mental health problems, pointing to differences between both cultures, specifically, in all dimensions of the concept except in erroneous beliefs/stereotypes dimension. Being close to mental health problems is associated with a greater knowledge level of mental health problems, but in North American participants this result wasn’t verified. The MHLq - young adults is a measure of interest for assessing mental health literacy levels in populations, allowing comparisons between these that may assist in developing mental health literacy promotion programs in order to enable individuals to take preventive action facing the increasing prevalence of mental health problems worldwide.

Date of Award	13 Jul 2020
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Luísa Campos (Supervisor) & Pedro Dias (Co-Supervisor)