Evaulation of Validity and Reliability of the Turkish Version of the Mental Health Literacy Scale (Mhl Scale)

Objective: Mental health literacy (MHL) is a component of health literacy that is still developing and has a decisive role in the mental health of individuals, and is defined as knowledge and beliefs to recognize, manage and prevent mental health illnesses. The aim of the study is to evaluate the validity and reliability of the MHL Scale in Turkish. Methods: This study is a methodological study conducted with the students of Eskisehir Osmangazi University in 2018 academic year. The study was conducted on 205 students taking into account the number of items on the scale. MHL Scale was translated into Turkish by translation-back translation method by two independent foreign language experts and presented to expert opinion. The MHL Scale's Content Validity Index was 0.82. In the study, MHL Scale to determine the level of MHL, the equivalent of criterion validity in assessing Turkey's Health Literacy Scale-32(THL-32) was used. Results: Of the study group, 105 were male(51.2%) and 100 were female(48.8%) and the mean age was 20.4 +/- 1.7 years. Factor loadings were 0.36-0.84 in the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and the compliance indices in the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were acceptable. The MHL-Scale score was higher in the medical faculty students than in the other students. MHL-Scale and THL-32 were found to be correlated positively. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the MHL Scale was 0.71. There was a positive correlation between test-retest scores. Conclusions: In the light of the analyzes, it can be said that MHL-Scale provides sufficient validity and reliability to measure mental health literacy.