Mental Health Education: An Evaluation of a Classroom Based Strategy to Modify Help Seeking for Mental Health Problems

The current study assessed the impact of a brief psychoeducational intervention on participants' attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. The 40-minute intervention focused on dispelling myths and stigmas associated with mental illness, modifying expectations about psychotherapy effectiveness, and providing students with information regarding treatment options. Compared to the control condition, participants in the classroom group showed significant improvements in attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, as well as in some of their opinions about mental illness, for up to one month following the intervention. These finding suggest that the use of a brief, classroom-based mental health education program is a promising method to modify help-seeking attitudes and negative opinions of the mentally ill.