Initial Development of the Adolescent Mental Health Literacy Scale
Abstract
Although African Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population, they also represent nearly 20% of persons with a mental illness diagnosis. Additionally, 58% of African Americans have average to below average health literacy. Studies suggest that low mental health literacy may result in higher levels of mental health-related stigma (MHS), limited access to mental health information, limited discussion regarding mental health, and lower rates of professional mental health service use. African American youth tend to not seek mental health services due to negative comments and a fear of being teased by their friends, family and community. African American parents and caregivers of youth believe that these negative beliefs and experiences could be the result of having a lack of mental health literacy (MHL). There is extensive research on adult MHL but, measuring health literacy of children and adolescents has been scarce. There is also little representation of African Americans in each sample. The Adolescent Mental Health Literacy Scale aimed to understand adolescent’s MHL and be used across different demographics. This scale was created by researching meta-analysis of current adolescent MHL scales and combining principles and questions from each. It was edited by three subject matter experts and has three domains: ability to recognize disorders (symptomology), knowledge of risk factors and causes, and reducing mental health stigma. The sample included 28 adolescents (average age 16.5, 82.1% AA; 71.4% female). The depression, eating disorders, risks, and stigma subscales had moderate reliability, the anxiety subscale had low reliability and the access to information subscale had high reliability. It is imperative to understand how youth conceptualize mental health in order to know create and implement prevention interventions for MHS and professional treatment seeking. This is particularly important for racial/ethnic minorities who are disproportionally affected by mental healthcare barriers such as African American adolescents.