Helping older adults to help themselves: the role of mental health literacy in family members

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Family members may play an important role in the health and well-being of older adults. However, little is known about the factors that influence the likelihood of family members supporting older relatives to seek help from mental health professionals for mental health concerns. Mental health literacy is associated with people's help-seeking intentions regarding their own mental health concerns, and some studies have suggested it may play a role in help-seeking on behalf of others. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether mental health literacy is associated with adults’ likelihood of supporting an older relative to seek professional help for mental health concerns.

Method: Two hundred and sixty-three participants completed a measure of mental health literacy and responded to a hypothetical scenario by indicating their likelihood of supporting an older relative experiencing mental health problems to seek help from various sources.

Results: Mental health literacy was positively associated with intentions to support older relative's help-seeking.

Conclusions: Interventions to increase the mental health literacy of the relatives of older adults may lead to additional support for older adults’ help-seeking for mental health concerns.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health literacy
• older adults
• aging and mental health
• help-seeking

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the community organizations who notified their members of this project.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.