Primeira Ajuda em Saúde Mental: Contributo do programa para o incremento da literacia em saúde mental dos estudantes do ensino superior

Objective: The present study aims to evaluate the contribution in terms of the Mental Health First Aid program's effectiveness in mental health literacy about depression, based on a sample of nursing students when entering and integrating into the course. Method: A pre-experimental design with a single group design, pre- and post-intervention assessment was used. The program lasted one day (9 hours). The study sample consisted of 100 students from the 1st year of the Nursing course (in the integration to the course), having been selected in a simple random way using the software random.org. The average age was 18.54 years (SD = 2.00 years). For data collection, we used the Mental Health Literacy Assessment Questionnaire, applied to depression, the short version of the Beliefs about Mental Illnesses Inventory, and the Personal Stigma Assessment Scale. We calculated summary statistics, McNemar and Student's t-tests for paired groups, and measures of effect size, the g, and d, respectively. Results: An increase in mental health literacy was observed with the recognition of depression and communication strategies for providing first aid (p < .05), specifically in the adequacy and usefulness of valuing symptoms and not expressing judgments, as well as a reduction in stigmatizing attitudes about disorders and patients (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Despite the limitations related to the design used, namely the lack of a control group, the results indicate that the frequency of the program contributes to increase mental health literacy about depression and reduce the stigma associated with mental health problems.