Mental Health and Wellbeing Literacy: a Cross-National Comparison

Abstract

This cross-national study investigated the mental health and wellbeing literacy of adults through a series of discrimination tasks which assessed their ability to correctly discriminate statements of mental health and wellbeing. A cross-national sample of 1044 adults aged 18 years and older were recruited through Qualtrics Panels. Participants resided in Australia, the United Kingdom, Singapore, South Africa and Malaysia. Quota sampling was undertaken within countries for sex and age-groups (18 to 39 years, 40 to 59 years, and 60 + years). Participants were assigned into one of two conditions in which mental health and wellbeing statements were either negatively or positively framed. In the first task, participants reported moderate levels of mental health and wellbeing literacy and there was consistency between nations in participants’ discrimination of statements. In the second discrimination task, participants now classified most statements indicators as reflecting “both mental health and wellbeing”. The findings suggest that while community members can mostly discriminate between statements of wellbeing and mental health, they will generally define these statements as reflecting dimensions of both mental health and wellbeing. For community members, it may be less important to discriminate between mental health and wellbeing but instead simply focus on overall psychological health which reflects both absence of pathology and presence of wellbeing.