Correlations Between Opinions About Mental Illness and Attitudes Towards Psychological Help Seeking for a Mental Illness Among College Students in Kenya

Abstract

Primary school teacher trainees in Kenya have been identified to have both negative opinions about mental illness and attitudes towards professional psychological help seeking for a mental health problem. This study aims at determining the relationship between opinions about mental illness and attitudes towards professional psychological help seeking for mental illness among college students in Kenya. This study used a self-administered demographic questionnaire, opinions about mental illness and attitudes towards professional psychological help seeking to collect data, among 2777 primary teacher trainees in Kenya. SPSS version 19 was used to analyses data. It was found that there is a positive correlation that was significant at p=0.000 between opinions about mental illness and attitudes towards professional psychological help seeking in this population; this is in line with other studies globally. This study recommended an intervention through psychoeducation of mental illness to improve both opinions about mental illness leading to attitudes towards professional psychological help for a mental illness.

Exploring the reform of college mental health education based on multi-source data

“…The development of high-quality abilities, particularly those with good mental health, is of utmost importance as people give more attention to the quality and substance of quality education. Psychological education, as a crucial component of the quality education work in colleges and institutions, is of utmost importance [1][2]. The 21st century has seen a path of constant improvement in college students' mental health education, and psychology education as a whole has improved in terms of educational quality.…”