Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy: Assessment Tool Development and an Evaluation of a College-Based Curriculum

Students’ mental health issues are a common concern on college campuses and are often addressed via prevention programming called mental health literacy. This dissertation consists of two studies regarding mental health literacy programming for college students at a western university in the United States. In study one, the Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy Assessment Tool (MHAA-AT) was created and evaluated for its utility in assessing college students’ mental health literacy. This assessment tool is unique in that it is built upon a process-based approach to mental health literacy. The assessment tool demonstrated adequate psychometric properties and it was deemed an appropriate tool to assess college students’ mental health literacy, specifically their declarative knowledge, self-efficacy, and behaviors. In study two the Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy (MHAA) curriculum was created and evaluated in a college student population. The MHAA curriculum is unique in that is taught in-person or online in a degree seeking program at a college or university. Results from study two suggest that the MHAA curriculum was effective in increasing college students’ mental health literacy scores, specifically their declarative knowledge and self-efficacy. The benefit of this two-study dissertation is that it provides a unique way to deliver and evaluate effective mental health literacy prevention programming on a larger scale via a degree-seeking program to college students

Postpartum Depression: What Is It and How Can Family and Friends Help?

Peripartum depression, now called postpartum depression (PPD), is an adjustment disorder manifesting symptoms throughout pregnancy or after childbirth. Women suffering from PPD often experience feelings of depression and fatigue, making it difficult to carry out daily activities (American Psychological Association, 2013). This condition should not be confused with the “baby blues,” which affects up to 80% of mothers and naturally subsides within a couple of weeks after childbirth (National Institute of Mental Health, 2013). Research shows that one in seven women experience PPD (Wishner et al., 2013). This fact sheet reviews how to work through the process of identifying, supporting, and responding to this temporary adjustment disorder in a proper manner

Caring for a Family Member During Stressful Times: Considerations for Maintaining Mental Health

Caring for a family member can take many forms. Whether you are caring for your mother with dementia or your son with a disability, caregiving for a family member can be very rewarding yet very stressful. As a family caregiver, it is likely that your stress has increased even more due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever, you might find it helpful to “care for the caregiver.” This fact sheet will help you identify your own stress, explore strategies to manage this stress, and then use additional resources for further support and assistance

Skills to Support Mental Health in Uncertain Times, Part 3: Being Engaged

This fact sheet is the third in a series of three about skills to improve mental health. It addresses how being engaged involves aligning your actions with your values (what you care about). This can be done by setting goals and committing to following through with the goals

Skills to Support Mental Health in Uncertain Times, Part 2: Cultivating Awareness

Uncertainty and worry can be a common struggle for many people, whether they are uncertain about their jobs, health, or relationships. Events such as COVID-19 and the recent wars in Israel and Ukraine increase the stress and uncertainty many people face. This fact sheet discusses awareness, a fundamental part of psychological flexibility, which can help individuals maintain a high quality of life—even when experiencing uncertainty and mental health concerns

Understanding Long COVID: Navigating the Journey to Recovery

This fact sheet provides very basic facts on what long COVID is and information on how to navigate the healthcare system and cope with long COVID

Skills to Support Mental Health in Uncertain Times, Part 1: Being Open

This fact sheet describes the skill of being open, an important component of psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility, being able to respond to uncomfortable thoughts and feelings in a flexible and values-aligned way, can help protect and improve an individual\u27s quality of life. Openness includes learning to accept uncomfortable thoughts and sensations rather than pushing them away. The fact sheet includes exercises that research has shown can help increase openness. Two other fact sheets are part of this Skills to Support Mental Health in Uncertain Times series, including Part 2: Cultivating Awareness, and Part 3: Being Engaged

Parent Perspectives on Preparing Students with Intellectual Disabilities for Inclusive Postsecondary Education

Using a three-round Delphi survey, researchers explored parent perspectives regarding the personal competencies students with intellectual disabilities (ID) needed to be better prepared for participation in an Inclusive Postsecondary Education program (IPSE). An expert panel comprised of parents of students with ID in IPSE programs participated. Three Delphi rounds consisted of open-ended questions and cycles of subsequent rating scales on identified perspectives to establish a quantitative basis for consensus. The parent panel reached consensus on a list of 30 personal competencies that support student preparation for IPSE. A description of the methodology, results, and implications for practice are discussed

Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy Assessment Tool (MHAA-AT)

The Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy Assessment Tool l (MHAA-AT) consists of three types of items: 1) declarative knowledge items (30 items); 2) self-efficacy items (20 items); and 3) behavior items (15 items). These items are then divided into the three micro-processes that define mental health literacy: a) identifying mental health issues; b) locating evidence-based resources; and c) responding to mental health issues (see Figure 1 below)

Measuring Mental Health Literacy: Development of the Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy Assessment Tool

Background: Mental health literacy programs are a common community-based approach used to address the prevention of mental health issues on college campuses. Current assessment strategies used to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs often lack strong theoretical rational and psychometric rigor. Purpose: The purpose of this study was twofold. First, based upon extant literature, theory, and standard clinical practice, we propose a process-based model of mental health literacy that includes three macro factors—identifying mental health issues, locating empirically based resources, and responding to mental health issues—and three micro processes of how they unfold—acquiring knowledge, building self-efficacy, and applying skills (behavior). The second aim was to test the psychometric properties of a new tool created to evaluate this process-based model—the Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy Assessment Tool (MHAA-AT). Setting: Not applicable. Intervention: Not applicable. Research Design: A national sample of 296 college attending participants were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Participants responded to a demographic questionnaire and the newly developed MHAA-AT. Psychometric properties were examined through item response theory, exploratory factor analyses, and bivariate correlations. Findings: Results suggest the MHAA-AT is a sound measure and demonstrates appropriate item, person, and trait characteristics on declarative knowledge items, and single factor structures on self-efficacy and behavior items with moderate to high reliability and validity. While additional testing is need among other samples, results suggest that the MHAA-AT is a quality assessment tool. Keywords: College students; mental health literacy; item response theory; measuremen