What is mental health literacy?

Mental health literacy (MHL) refers to an individuals’ knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders that aid their recognition, management, and prevention.

The Role of Mental health literacy in Accessing services

Mental health literacy

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“Knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders which aid in their recognition, management or prevention.”

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Mental healthealth literacy includes

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• Ability to recognise mental disorders
• Knowing how to seek information
• Knowledge of risk factors and cause
• Knowledge of professional help available
• Knowledge of self- treatment
• Attitudes that promote recognition and help-seeking

Why Mental Health literacy is important

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• Mental health literacy places a limit on the implementation of evidence-based health care.
• Poor mental health literacy means that the task of preventing and helping mental disorders is largely confined to professionals.

Mental Health Literacy in Rural India

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Poor knowledge about mental health is one of the main barriers for seeking treatment in our country, especially among rural areas. It also contributes significantly toward stigma and discrimination that persons with mental disorders face. Early recognition and intervention for persons with mental health problems have positive outcomes. Mental health literacy is being seen as one of the key indicators in predicting successful outcomes in persons with mental disorders. People with mental illness are subjected to discrimination and are treated with contempt due to the deep-rooted stigma present in the rural society.

Due to this, there is a need to understand the local and cultural contexts of stigma to develop effective and innovative methods to change such attitude. With newer research, today, various new techniques have been implemented to increase the mental health literacy among the rural societies in India.

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