Mental Health Awareness: A Study on Urban Secondary School Teachers in Selangor

Abstract

Teachers are known to be resilient to stress, anxiety, and depression; hence were unable to relate themselves to mental health issues, let alone having anxiety. Even though the symptoms were obvious, most teachers think their mental health issues are controllable. These were the case with 20 urban secondary school teachers from 13 schools in Selangor. Due to the rising number of teachers suffering from stress, anxiety, and depression in Malaysia, the state of Selangor was chosen since it has the highest number of urban secondary schools. This study uses a mixed-method design, combining the quantitative method (DASS-21 Screening Test) and the qualitative method (interviews). The use of DASS-21 is to understand their mental health level before the qualitative phase. While this study would like to understand the informants' mental health awareness from the social marketing point of view, the result showed that most informants do not know where to start as they do not realise they have mental health issues. Hence, publications and information were undistributed to this cohort as they could not relate to having one.