Levels of Covid fear in a sample of adolescents: does mental health literacy helps?

Abstract

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic generated great fear and anxiety across the world. Debates concerning mental health promotion and mental illness prevention have reinforced the importance of promoting mental health literacy and providing psychological help to the population. Nonetheless, no study has examined the effect of mental health literacy and psychological help in levels of fear of covid. Aims: This study aims to explore the relationship between literacy about mental illness, literacy about mental well-being, having consulted a psychologist / psychiatrist in the past and levels of fear of covid, in a sample of Portuguese adolescents. Methods: Using cross-sectional design we collected a sample of 345 adolescents (53.2% of the participants are female) aged between 15-18 years old, that filled during the months of May-June 2021 an online survey composed of a sociodemographic questionnaire, two mental health literacy scales – one measuring literacy about mental illness (Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire - MHLq), one measuring literacy about mental well-being (Positive Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire - PosMHLit) - and two questionnaires measuring coronavirus anxiety and fear of Covid (CAS and FCV-19S). In order to assess professional psychological help,subjects werealso asked if they had consulted a psychologist or psychiatrist in the past. Results: Fear of covid is related to mental health literacy and having psychological support in the past. Results from multiple regression analysis, on the other hand, suggest that variance in fear of covid is better explained by sociodemographic variables, such as gender, than by mental health literacy. Conclusions: Exploring the main findings and the relationships between variables, the implications of the results will be addressed.