Context and mental health awareness among Malaysian adolescents
Maintaining our mental health is crucial to facilitate our capacity to think, behave, engage with others, secure a livelihood, and savor life. The mental health situation among the adolescents in Malaysia has reached a worrying state with the rising number of cases. Studies stated that the lack of a...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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2023
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| Summary: | Maintaining our mental health is crucial to facilitate our capacity to think, behave, engage with others, secure a livelihood, and savor life. The mental health situation among the adolescents in Malaysia has reached a worrying state with the rising number of cases. Studies stated that the lack of awareness and insufficiency of knowledge on mental illness and treatment options posed challenges to the mental health. Previous research indicated that mental health is an area where adolescents have identified necessity for health education. Despite significant increase in the literature of mental health, studies rarely focused on examining the predictors of mental health awareness. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine Malaysian adolescents’ mental health awareness. This research focuses on the influence of knowledge on mental health, knowledge on professional help and attitude towards mental health on mental health awareness. Besides, this research also investigates the influence of familiarity and media exposure on knowledge on mental health, knowledge on professional help and attitude towards mental health. Furthermore, the mediating roles of knowledge on mental health, knowledge on professional help and attitude towards mental health are also tested. 450 sets of online self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 15 to 19 years old secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur and Melaka. Purposive sampling was used and data collected were analyzed using SPSS and SmartPLS to perform the descriptive analysis, measurement model and structural model. The results indicated that mental health awareness is influenced by knowledge on mental health and attitude towards mental health. The findings also reveal that familiarity and media exposure are important determinants to knowledge on mental health, knowledge on professional help and attitude towards mental health. This research also discovered that knowledge on mental health and attitude towards mental health positively mediates the relationship between media exposure and mental health awareness. Meanwhile, only attitude towards mental health positively mediates the relationship between familiarity and mental health awareness. Knowledge on professional help does not have effect on mental health awareness and does not play a mediating role in this study. This study adds knowledge to the limited literature in this contemporary domain. An effective public mental health action is needed to reduce the burden of disease and the cost of mental illness now and in the future. |
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