Turkish validity and reliability study of Mental Health Literacy

The study aims to perform Turkish adaptation and conduct the validity and reliability analysis of the Mental Health Literacy Scale developed by O'Connor et al. to determine the level of mental health literacy. This study was conducted by sending a survey link through the Google Forms application online to people who voluntarily agreed to participate in the research between February 5th, 2021, and December 2nd, 2022. A total of 424 people, 342 (80.7%) females and 82 (19.3%) males participated in the research. "Personal Information Form" and "Mental Health Literacy Scale" were used in the data collection. In statistical analysis, kurtosis and skewness analysis, language validity, content validity, reliability analysis, retest analysis, item analysis, confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis, convergent validity and divergent validity, and Hotelling's T2 tests were used. The Kaiser Mayer Olkin value of the Mental Health Literacy Scale, which was reduced to 26 items through item removal analysis, was 0.869, and Bartlett's Sphericity Test value was p<0.001. These values revealed that there was a relationship between the variables included in the factor analysis and that the sample size was sufficient for factor analysis. As a result of the factor analysis, the variables were grouped under 4 factors with a 53.903% total variance explained. Factor 1 was named "Attitudes toward Mental Illnesses and Seeking Appropriate Help", Factor 2 was "Attitudes toward Individuals with Mental Illness", Factor 3 was "Ability to Recognize Mental Disorders", and Factor 4 was "Knowledge on How to Access Information". As a result of the reliability analysis, the overall Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.851. This value was 0.872 for "Factor 1", 0.901 for "Factor 2", 0.815 for "Factor 3", and 0.663 for "Factor 4". The factor loadings of the scale were found to be 0.5 and above. The construct reliability (CR) values of the scale were greater than the Average Variance Explained (AVE) values, and AVE values were greater than 0.5. Intraclass Correlation Coefficient and test-retest correlation values regarding the agreement between test-retest measurements were found to be at a high level, and there was no difference between test-retest correlation values (p<0.05). The results of the validity and reliability study conducted to adapt the Mental Health Literacy Scale into Turkish showed that this scale can be used to measure the level of mental health literacy in the Turkish population. This scale can be used as a valid and reliable tool in determining knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes about the level of mental health literacy.