Development and Validation of Bengali Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool (B-MHLAT): An Instrument to Measure Mental Health Literacy in Bengali Adults
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31674/mjn.2024.v16isupp1.010Abstract
Background: Mental health literacy therefore refers to the knowledge and perceptions about mental health and mental illnesses and is vital in encouraging people to seek help and in decreasing mental health-related problems. Nevertheless, no instruments have been developed to measure "Mental Health Literacy" among the Bengali-speaking population. The purpose of this research was to extend the Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool to create a culturally appropriate Bengali Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool. Methods: The development process began with the creation of an English questionnaire divided into two parts: Part 1 for socio-demographic data and Part 2 for “Mental Health Literacy” evaluation. Before the tool was translated into Bengali, the draft tool was reviewed by 14 experts, and the translation was done with the help of Bengali, English-speaking, as well as bilingual persons. The translated tool was then piloted on 10 Bengali adults to find out the internal consistency by applying Cronbach’s Alpha method. Subsequently, the tool was used to survey 246 Bengali adults from the target communities in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. To make the tool more manageable, reliable, and valid, a factor analysis was calculated on the collected data. Results: The Bengali Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool had good reliability whereby the internal consistency was high at 0.89 Cronbach’s Alpha. Out of the initially developed 55 items, 42 were accepted by the experts, and 33 items were obtained after the factor analysis of responses from 246 participants. Conclusion: The Bengali Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool has been developed as a culturally appropriate, valid, and reliable instrument for use in India and for measuring mental health literacy in Bengali-speaking adults. It is expected that this tool will make a substantial contribution to the study and improvement of literacy about mental health and mental illnesses in this population.
Keywords:
Development of Tool, Mental Health Literacy, Mental Health Literacy Assessment, Validation of ToolDownloads
References
Alshehri, E., Alosaimi, D., Rufaidi, E., Alsomali, N., & Tumala, R. (2021). Mental health literacy scale Arabic version: A validation study among Saudi University students. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.741146
Altweck, L., Marshall, T. C., Ferenczi, N., & Lefringhausen, K. (2015). Mental health literacy: A cross-cultural approach to knowledge and beliefs about depression, schizophrenia and generalized anxiety disorder. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01272
Campos, L., Dias, P., Costa, M., Rabin, L., Miles, R., Lestari, S., Feraihan, R., Pant, N., Sriwichai, N., Boonchieng, W., & Yu, L. (2022). Mental health literacy questionnaire-short version for adults (MHLq-SVa): Validation study in China, India, Indonesia, Portugal, Thailand, and the United States. BMC Psychiatry, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-04308-0
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. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17030948
Chaves, C., Duarte, J., Sampaio, F., Coelho, J., Gonçalves, A., Santos, V., & Sequeira, C. (2023). Construction and validation of the positive mental health literacy assessment scale in adults. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(14). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20146391
Choudhry, F. R., Mani, V., Ming, L. C., & Khan, T. M. (2019). Beliefs and perception about mental health issues: A meta-synthesis. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 12, 2807–2818. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S111543
dos Santos, S. J., Soares, F. C., Gaoua, N., Rangel Junior, J. F. L. B., Lima, R. A., & de Barros, M. V. G. (2024). Development and validation of a scale to measure social isolation in adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 34(3), 1069–1077. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12952
Festucci, F., Pino, M. C., Viselli, L., D’ Aurizio, G., Salfi, F., Amicucci, G., Corigliano, D., D’ Atri, A., Ferrara, M., & Tempesta, D. (2024). The assessment of emotion reactivity: The Italian validation of the Perth Emotional Reactivity Scale–short form (PERS‐S). European Journal of Neuroscience, 59(7), 1848–1859. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.16264
Haeri-Mehrizi, A., Mohammadi, S., Rafifar, S., Sadighi, J., Kermani, R. M., Rostami, R., Hashemi, A., Tavousi, M., & Montazeri, A. (2024). Health literacy and mental health: A national cross-sectional inquiry. Scientific Reports, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-64656-7
Harte, P., & Barry, M. M. (2024). A scoping review of the implementation and cultural adaptation of school-based mental health promotion and prevention interventions in low-and middle-income countries. Global mental health (Cambridge, England), 11. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2024.48
Jorm, A. F., Blewitt, K. A., Griffiths, K. M., Kitchener, B. A., & Parslow, R. A. (2005). Mental health first aid responses of the public: results from an Australian national survey. BMC Psychiatry, 5, 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-5-9
Kim, M. K., Su, G. S., Chan, A. N. Y., Fu, Y., Huang, Y., Huang, C.-C., Hires, B., & Chu, M. T. (2024). Mental health priorities and cultural-responsiveness of the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training for Asian immigrant populations in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. BMC Psychiatry, 24(1), https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-05894-x
Krohne, N., Gomboc, V., Lavrič, M., Podlogar, T., Poštuvan, V., Šedivy, N. Z., & De Leo, D. (2022). Slovenian Validation of the Mental Health Literacy Scale (S-MHLS) on the General Population: A Four-Factor Model. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 59. https://doi.org/10.1177/00469580211047193
Kutcher, S., Wei, Y., & Coniglio, C. (2016). Mental health literacy: past, present, and future. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 61(3), 154–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/0706743715616609
Liu, Z., Yuan, F., Zhao, J., & Du, J. (2023). Reliability and validity of the positive mental health literacy scale in Chinese adolescents. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1150293
Nejatian, M., Tehrani, H., Momeniyan, V., & Jafari, A. (2021). A modified version of the mental health literacy scale (MHLS) in Iranian people. BMC Psychiatry, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-021-03050-3
O’Connor, M., & Casey, L. (2015). The Mental Health Literacy Scale (MHLS): A new scale-based measure of mental health literacy. Psychiatry Research, 229(1–2), 511–516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2015.05.064
O’Connor, M., Casey, L., & Clough, B. (2014). Measuring mental health literacy – a review of scale-based measures. Journal of Mental Health, 23(4), 197–204. https://doi.org/10.3109/09638237.2014.910646
O'Connor, M. (n.d.). About Dr. Matt O'Connor. Retrieved from: https://www.drmattoconnor.com/about-dr-matt-oconnor, Accessed on 10th December, 2023.
Riebschleger, J., Grové, C., Kelly, K., & Cavanaugh, D. (2022). Developing and Initially Validating the Youth Mental Health Literacy Scale for Ages 11–14. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.817208
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2024, October 23). Bengali language. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bengali-language, Accessed on 27th July, 2024.
Tian, C. Y., Mo, P. K. H., Dong, D., Cheung, A. W. L., & Wong, E. L. Y. (2023). Development and validation of a comprehensive health literacy tool for adults in Hong Kong. Frontiers in Public Health, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1043197
Wang, A., Jia, S., Shi, Z., Sun, X., Zhu, Y., & Shen, M. (2022). Validation and psychometric testing of the Chinese version of the mental health literacy scale among nurses. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.791883
Wei, Y., McGrath, P. J., Hayden, J., & Kutcher, S. (2016). Measurement properties of tools measuring mental health knowledge: A systematic review. BMC Psychiatry, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-016-1012-5
Zare, S., Kaveh, M. H., Ghanizadeh, A., Nazari, M., Asadollahi, A., & Zare, R. (2022). Adolescent Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire: Investigating Psychometric Properties in Iranian Female Students. BioMed Research International, 2022(1). https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/7210221
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 The Malaysian Journal of Nursing (MJN)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
