ArticleBMC public health2023
Evaluating the effect of an adapted mental health literacy intervention on mental health related stigma among secondary students in Germany: results of a pre-post evaluation study.
Article in BMC public health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Information and Communication Technology Interventions to Enhance Mental Health Literacy Among Young Adults and Adolescents: A Meta-Analysis.International journal of nursing practice · 2026Pooled it
- From innovation to integration: what German mental health professionals think about peer-led youth discovery colleges.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Children's and adolescents' perceptions of Discovery Colleges in Germany: low awareness but high acceptability.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- The causal relationship between mental illness-related stigma and mental health knowledge among adolescents at different educational stages: a longitudinal cross-lagged study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- The effects of an adapted mental health literacy curriculum for secondary school students in Germany on mental health knowledge and help-seeking efficacy: results of a quasi-experimental pre-post evaluation study.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundMost mental health problems develop during youth, with about three quarter emerging before age 25. In adolescence, stigmatizing attitudes related to mental illness become more nuanced and consolidate into one's belief system. As the stigma of mental illness is still one of the leading barriers to help-seeking, intervention measures should explicitly address it before it becomes entrenched over time. Preventive measures, for example, based on promoting mental health literacy (MHL), can be used to address and tackle stigmatizing attitudes. The Canadian MHL-based intervention "the Guide" was translated and adapted for the use in German schools. The present study evaluates the effect of the German version of the Guide on attitudes towards mental illness among students in Germany.
methodsThe first-time application of the Guide (German version) was evaluated with a pre-post-evaluation study with an intervention and a control group. The evaluation data of 188 students (intervention group n = 106, control group n = 82) were statistically analyzed focusing on the outcomes social stigma, social distance, and self-stigma.
resultsThe analysis showed that participants do not tend to hold stigmatizing attitudes even before the intervention. Nevertheless, the intervention was effective in reducing social stigma, but not in reducing social distance and self-stigma. Neither gender, pre-existing experience with mental illness, nor the delivery modality of the contact element within the intervention (speaker vs. video) seemed to influence the outcomes.
conclusionsThe German version of the MHL-based intervention, the Guide, seems to be a suitable intervention to improve attitudes towards mental illness among students in Germany. More extensive research is necessary to confirm the findings and further explore factors that influence the program's effects on attitudes short- and long-term.
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