Mental Health Literacy, Stigma, and Attitude towards Seeking ‘Help’

Abstract

When people are aware about various physical and mental health illnesses that can affect their health and well being, they can not only engage themselves in improving their own health but can also play an active role in disseminating trustworthy information in the community, specially in the era of ‘fast forward’ messages on various social media platforms. The concepts of Health Literacy and Mental Health Literacy have been discussed in this paper. Mental health literacy understands mental health problems with right mindset to spot them early, deal with them properly, and even stop them before they start. The concept of mental health literacy encompasses not just information about mental illnesses, but also practical knowledge that empowers meaningful information which can lead to beneficial action for promoting mentally healthy behaviour. This paper is a non-systematic review of publications that have been written about public mental health literacy. Evidences from the literature indicate that public understanding of mental disorders as medical conditions, as well as knowledge of effective, evidence-based treatments, is often limited or inaccurate. In lower-resource contexts, where availability of mental health services is already constrained, poor mental health literacy can make it challenging to treat those in need. This study aims to enhance understanding of the problem through an examination of mental health literacy, stigma and attitudes. This study was conducted to review past-present comprehensive data regarding mental health literacy in India. Treatment hurdles have been discovered which includes stigmatized understanding of mental health illnesses or low mental health literacy. By promoting mental health literacy, we can combat the pervasive discrimination against those seeking mental health services.