School-based mental health literacy training for secondary-school teachers and students: Experiences from two Southeast Asian nations

Dang, H.M (Hoang-Minh), Nguyen, A (Amanda)¹, Bui, D (Dieu)², Phoeun, B (Bunna)², Weiss, B (Bahr)^3
1University of Virginia, USA
²Vietnam National University, College of Education, Hanoi, Vietnam
³Vanderbilt University, USA

 

Submission type

Oral only

Scheduled

Room 119, 11-07-2019, 09:00 - 10:30

Keywords

Mental health literacy, school-based intervention, program evaluation, Vietnam, Cambodia

Summary

School-based mental health literacy (MHL) is of central importance in school psychology, particularly in lesser developed countries with relatively few mental health resources. In the present study, “The Guide”, a well-validated school MHL curriculum program, was culturally adapted from the original Canadian version for use in Vietnam and Cambodia. The program consists of 2.5 day training for teachers and five 55-minute sessions for students over five weeks provided by the trained teachers. Program effects were evaluated in Vietnam pre-training, post-training, and 2 months post-training on self-reported MHL, among 80 teachers and 2518 students in 20 secondary schools. The program evaluation was expanded to Cambodia for further testing in lower resource settings, in one secondary school among 67 teachers and 275 students. In both Vietnam and Cambodia, results indicated significant and large improvement in knowledge and attitudes regarding mental health literacy in teachers in the experimental group compared to the control group. There also was significant change in Vietnamese students’ MHL but not Cambodian students’ MHL. The results support the applicability of “The Guide” program in schools in Vietnam and Cambodia but also suggest areas where improvements may be made.

Auteurs