Mind the gap: Person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudents

Mental illnesses are rapidly escalating on university and college campuses. It is well known that postsecondary institutions are not doing enough to address mental health concerns: this represents a significant gap in our attempts to meet the mental health needs of young people. Deficits in mental h...

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Main Authors: Laura Lynne Armstrong, Kaitlyn Young
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2015-08-01
Series:Psychosocial Intervention
Online Access:http://www.copmadrid.org/webcopm/publicaciones/social/in2015v24n2a4.pdf
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spelling doaj-c49a59eb8a43481e827db71344123a3a2020-11-24T21:46:00ZengColegio Oficial de Psicólogos de MadridPsychosocial Intervention1132-05592173-47122015-08-01242838710.1016/j.psi.2015.05.00211320559Mind the gap: Person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudentsLaura Lynne ArmstrongKaitlyn YoungMental illnesses are rapidly escalating on university and college campuses. It is well known that postsecondary institutions are not doing enough to address mental health concerns: this represents a significant gap in our attempts to meet the mental health needs of young people. Deficits in mental health knowledge are now proposed as a major contributing factor to both stigma and low service access, but little research as explored this issue. There is also little research to date concerning what young people want to know about mental health and how best to disseminate mental health knowledge. Without such information, knowledge may not be shared in a person-centred, meaningful manner that youth will use. We explored these issues in the present study. First year postsecondary students (N = 271; n = 183 females; n = 85 males; n = 3 other) from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada participated in the online survey. Almost half of the postsecondary youth participants, particularly males, had difficulty recognizing common mental illnesses, such as anxiety, eating disorders, and psychosis. Youth held inaccurate beliefs and stigma, as well as attitudes not in favour of help-seeking. They primarily wanted to know about symptoms of mental illnesses as well as how to cope with stress. Post-secondary students wanted to learn about mental health issues through public presentations, the Internet, and media. The present research suggests the need for an awareness and acknowledgement among policy-makers of first year post-secondary students' knowledge gaps and youth appropriate knowledge sharing. Assessing mental health knowledge, what post-secondary students want to know about mental health, and knowledge transfer preferences could aid in the development of a framework to address the significant gap in the mental health needs of post-secondary students in a person centred manner.http://www.copmadrid.org/webcopm/publicaciones/social/in2015v24n2a4.pdf
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language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Laura Lynne Armstrong
Kaitlyn Young
spellingShingle Laura Lynne Armstrong
Kaitlyn Young
Mind the gap: Person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudents
Psychosocial Intervention
author_facet Laura Lynne Armstrong
Kaitlyn Young
author_sort Laura Lynne Armstrong
title Mind the gap: Person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudents
title_short Mind the gap: Person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudents
title_full Mind the gap: Person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudents
title_fullStr Mind the gap: Person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudents
title_full_unstemmed Mind the gap: Person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudents
title_sort mind the gap: person-centred delivery of mental health information to post-secondarystudents
publisher Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid
series Psychosocial Intervention
issn 1132-0559
2173-4712
publishDate 2015-08-01
description Mental illnesses are rapidly escalating on university and college campuses. It is well known that postsecondary institutions are not doing enough to address mental health concerns: this represents a significant gap in our attempts to meet the mental health needs of young people. Deficits in mental health knowledge are now proposed as a major contributing factor to both stigma and low service access, but little research as explored this issue. There is also little research to date concerning what young people want to know about mental health and how best to disseminate mental health knowledge. Without such information, knowledge may not be shared in a person-centred, meaningful manner that youth will use. We explored these issues in the present study. First year postsecondary students (N = 271; n = 183 females; n = 85 males; n = 3 other) from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada participated in the online survey. Almost half of the postsecondary youth participants, particularly males, had difficulty recognizing common mental illnesses, such as anxiety, eating disorders, and psychosis. Youth held inaccurate beliefs and stigma, as well as attitudes not in favour of help-seeking. They primarily wanted to know about symptoms of mental illnesses as well as how to cope with stress. Post-secondary students wanted to learn about mental health issues through public presentations, the Internet, and media. The present research suggests the need for an awareness and acknowledgement among policy-makers of first year post-secondary students' knowledge gaps and youth appropriate knowledge sharing. Assessing mental health knowledge, what post-secondary students want to know about mental health, and knowledge transfer preferences could aid in the development of a framework to address the significant gap in the mental health needs of post-secondary students in a person centred manner.
url http://www.copmadrid.org/webcopm/publicaciones/social/in2015v24n2a4.pdf
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