Levels of Covid fear in a sample of adolescents: does mental health literacy helps?

Article Sidebar

Revista INFAD. Número 1, volumen 2 de 2022
PDF
Published: Jul 16, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17060/ijodaep.2022.n1.v2.2345
Keywords:
covid-19 fear coronavirus anxiety mental health literacy adolescents

Main Article Content

Maria da Luz Vale Dias
Mariana Maia de Carvalho

Abstract

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic generated great fear and anxiety across the world. Debates concerning mental health promotion and mental illness prevention have reinforced the importance of promoting mental health literacy and providing psychological help to the population. Nonetheless, no study has examined the effect of mental health literacy and psychological help in levels of fear of covid. Aims: This study aims to explore the relationship between literacy about mental illness, literacy about mental well-being, having consulted a psychologist / psychiatrist in the past and levels of fear of covid, in a sample of Portuguese adolescents. Methods: Using cross-sectional design we collected a sample of 345 adolescents (53.2% of the participants are female) aged between 15-18 years old, that filled during the months of May-June 2021 an online survey composed of a sociodemographic questionnaire, two mental health literacy scales – one measuring literacy about mental illness (Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire - MHLq), one measuring literacy about mental well-being (Positive Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire - PosMHLit) - and two questionnaires measuring coronavirus anxiety and fear of Covid (CAS and FCV-19S). In order to assess professional psychological help,subjects werealso asked if they had consulted a psychologist or psychiatrist in the past. Results: Fear of covid is related to mental health literacy and having psychological support in the past. Results from multiple regression analysis, on the other hand, suggest that variance in fear of covid is better explained by sociodemographic variables, such as gender, than by mental health literacy. Conclusions: Exploring the main findings and the relationships between variables, the implications of the results will be addressed.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
Vale Dias, M. da L., & Maia de Carvalho, M. (2022). Levels of Covid fear in a sample of adolescents: does mental health literacy helps?. International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology. Revista INFAD De Psicología., 2(1), 217–226. https://doi.org/10.17060/ijodaep.2022.n1.v2.2345
Issue
Vol. 2 No. 1 (2022): MEETING WITH SCIENCE. A REFLECTION ON THE UNIVERSITY
Section
Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
 
a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format under the following terms:

 

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

 
b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
 
c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
 
The authors are responsible to obtain the appropriate permissions to reproduce material (text, images or graphics) from other publications and to quote their origin correctly.
 

References

Bavel, J.J.V., Baicker, K., Boggio, P.S. et al. (2020). Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nat Hum Behav, 4, 460–471. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0884-z

Beck, M.J., & Hensher, D.A. (2020). Insights into the impact of COVID-19 on household travel and activities in Australia-The early days under restrictions. Transp. Policy, 96, 76–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2020.07.001

BjØrnsen, H. N., Eilertsen, M. E. B., Ringdal, R., Espnes, G. A., & Moksnes, U. K. (2017). Positive mental health literacy: development and validation of a measure among Norweguian adolescentes. BMC Public Health, 17, 717. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4733-6

BjØrnsen, H. N., Espnes,G.A., Eilertsen, M.E.B., Ringdal,R., & Moksnes, U.K. (2019). The relationship between positive mental health literacy and mental well-being among adolescents: implications for school health services. The Journal of School Nursing, 20(10), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059840517732125

Brody, L. R., & Hall, J. A. (2008). Gender and emotion in context. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 395–408). The Guilford Press.

Campos, L., Dias, P., Palha, F., Duarte, A., & Veiga, E. (2016). Development and psychometric properties of a new questionnaire for assessing Mental Health Literacy in young people. Universitas Psychologica, 15(2), 61-72. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy15-2.dppq

Chao, H. -J., Lien, Y. -J., Kao, Y. -C., Tasi, I. -C., Lin, H. -S., & Lien, Y. -Y. (2020). Mental Health Literacy in Healthcare Students: An Expansion of the Mental Health Literacy Scale. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 17, 948. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17030948

Cole, S., Balcetis, E. & Dunning, D. (2013). Afective signals of threat increase perceived proximity. Psychol. Sci., 24, 34–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612446953

Iasiello, M., van Agteren, J., & Muir-Cochrane, E. (2020). Mental Health and/or Mental Illness: a Scoping Review of the Evidence and Implications of the Dual Continua Model of Mental Health. Evidence Base, (1). https://doi.org/10.21307/ed-2020-001

Jorm, A. F. (2000). Mental health literacy, public knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders. British Journal of Psychiatry, 177, 396-401. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.177.5.396

Jorm, A. F., Korten, A. E., Jacomb, P. A., Christensen, H., Rodgers, B., & Pollit, P. (1997). “Mental health literacy”: a survey of the public’s ability to recognise mental disorders and their beliefs about the effectiveness of treatment. Medical Journal of Australia, 166, 182-186. https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1997.tb140071.x

Jorm, A. F., Wilson, C., Allen, N. B., McKay-Brown, L., & Proimos, J. (2020). Twelve-month outcomes of MAKINGtheLINK: A cluster randomized controlled trial of a school-based program to facilitate help-seeking for substance use and mental health problems. EClinicalMedicine, 18, 100225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2019.11.018

Kutcher S., Wei Y., & Coniglio, C. (2016). Mental health literacy; past, present and future. Canadian Journal of

Psychiatry, 61(3), 154–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/0706743715616609.

Kutcher, S., Wei, Y., Costa, S., Gusmão, R., Skokauskas, N., Sourander, A. (2016). Enhancing mental health literacy in young people. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 25, 567–569. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-016-0867-9

Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E. & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 111, 8878–8790. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1320040111

Lally, J., ó Conghaile, A., Quigley, S., Bainbridge, E., & McDonald, C. (2013). Stigma of mental illness and helpseeking intention in university students. The Psychiatrist, 37(8), 253– 260. https://doi.org/10.1192/pb.bp.112.041483

Lam, L. T. (2014). Mental health literacy and mental health status in adolescents: A population-based survey. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 8, 26. https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-8-26

LeDoux, J. (2012). Rethinking the emotional brain. Neuron, 73, 653–676. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2012.02.004

Luchetti, M., Lee, J. H., Aschwanden, D., Sesker, A., Strickhouser, J. E., Terracciano, A., & Sutin, A. R. (2020). The trajectory of loneliness in response to COVID-19. American Psychologist, 75(7), 897-908. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000690

Magano, J., Vidal, D., Sousa, H., Dinis, M., & Leite, A. (2021). Validation and Psychometric Properties of the Portuguese Version of the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) and Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) and Associations with Travel, Tourism and Hospitality. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(2):427. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020427

Mobbs, D., Hagan, C. C., Dalgleish, T., Silston, B. & Prévost, C. (2015). The ecology of human fear: survival optimization and the nervous system. Front. Neurosci., 9, 55. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2015.00055

Sansom-Daly, U. M., Lin, M., Robertson, E: G., Wakefield, C. E., McGill, B. C., Girgis, A., & Cohn, R. J. (2016). Health literacy in adolescents and young adults: An updated review. Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology, 5(2), 106-118. https://doi.org/10.1089/jayao.2015.0059

Serafini, G., Parmigiani, B., Amerio, A., Aguglia, A., Sher, L., & Amore, M. (2020). The psychological impact of COVID-19 on the mental health in the general population. QJM An Int. J. Med., 113, 531–537. https://doi.org/10.1093/qjmed/hcaa201

Spiker, D. A., & Hammer, J. H. (2019). Mental health literacy as theory: current challenges and future directions. Journal of mental health (Abingdon, England), 28(3), 238–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638237.2018.1437613

Westerhof, G. L. & Keyes, C. L. M. (2010). Mental illness and mental health: the two continua model across the lifespan. Journal of Adult Development, 17, 110 - 119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-009-9082–y

Wen, J., Kozak, M., Yang, S., & Liu, F. (2021). COVID-19: potential effects on Chinese citizens’ lifestyle and travel, Tourism Review, 76(1), 74-87. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-03-2020-0110

World Health Organization. (2021). Guidelines on mental health promotive and preventive interventions for adolescents: helping adolescents thrive. Executive summary. WHO.