Mental health literacy of students: evaluation of school-based intervention in Germany

BACKGROUND: Low mental health literacy, which encompasses a set of skills related to recognizing, managing, and preventing mental disorders, has been identified as a crucial cause for low rates of mental health help-seeking, especially among young people. Thus, a strategy for strengthening the mental health literacy of youth is through provision of universal school interventions. In order to add to the evidence-base of the effectiveness of such interventions, an already existing program (“Mental Health and High School Curriculum Guide”) was translated into German and carried out in schools. METHODS: A non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design was chosen to verify whether mental health knowledge, stigmatizing attitudes, help-seeking efficacy (as central indicators for mental health literacy) improved after the implementation of the program. A pen and paper survey was conducted in schools to gather data from participating students. Statistical analysis was conducted through paired sample t-tests for the intervention and control group individually. RESULTS: Nine classes with 169 students (Ø 15.7 years old) participated as intervention group, while five classes with 82 students (Ø 15.3 years old) served as a control group. Statistically significant improvements were observed after participating in the program for mental health knowledge, stigmatizing attitudes and help-seeking efficacy in the intervention group. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that a mental health literacy resource could be successfully adapted and used in the German school context and was able to improve relevant indicators of mental health literacy. More data needs to be collected in order to inform on the stability of the results in time and to verify whether effectiveness varies with characteristics related to school environment or socio-demographics of participating youth. Further, comprehensive nationwide roll-outs of the intervention can be implemented as a public mental health strategy.