Abstract
The benefits of public knowledge towards physical health are widely accepted but the area of mental health literacy remains undervalued and relatively neglected. The study aimed to identify caregivers’ mental health literacy in Malaysia. There were 154 family caregivers participated in the face-to-face semi-structured interview regarding their personal caring experiences. This study found that majority of the caregivers was women aged less than 60 years. Most of the caregivers have some understanding about their relatives’ mental illness. More than half of the participants found that the doctors were considered as their primary source of information about mental health. Consistent with previous literature in Malaysia, most of the caregivers used religious and traditional coping mechanism in their help-seeking processes. Each ethnic group had their own strong cultural beliefs about mental illness. The implications for mental health services are that many of the caregivers need help to educate their family members about mental illness. While this study emphasized on the family members who should be targeted to improve mental health literacy it also become significant to the public to reduce stigma towards the person with mental illness and their family.
Highlights
Advancements in information technology and medical technology stimulate the capacity of the public to be better informed and educated about the nature of many diseases and illness
The majority of the caregivers described that they learn about mental illness from the doctors and nurses
Most of the carers who use the mental health services claimed that they learned about mental illness from the mental health professionals
Summary
Advancements in information technology and medical technology stimulate the capacity of the public to be better informed and educated about the nature of many diseases and illness. The core of this capacity is the concept of health literacy. Many countries include an objective to improve health literacy as one of the agendas for their Health Communication Report (Nutbeam and Kickbusch, 2000). The field of health literacy has advanced since the 2004 but health literacy in developing countries still remains poor and unresolved (Ganasen et al, 2008). What is more alarming is that the health literacy issues are worsening in developing countries especially in the component of mental health
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
