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Development and Validation of Bengali Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool (B-MHLAT): An Instrument to Measure Mental Health Literacy in Bengali Adults

Malaysian Journal of Nursing, ISSN: 2462-246X, Vol: 16, Issue: Suppl 1, Page: 100-110
2024
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Article Description

Background: Mental Health Literacy therefore refers to the knowledge and perceptions about mental health and mental illnesses and is vital in encouraging people to seek help and in decreasing mental health-related problems. Nevertheless, no instruments have been developed to measure "Mental Health Literacy" among the Bengali-speaking population. The purpose of this research was to extend the Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool to create a culturally appropriate Bengali Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool . Methods: The development process began with the creation of an English questionnaire divided into two parts: Part 1 for socio-demographic data and Part 2 for “mental health literacy” evaluation. Before the tool was translated into Bengali, the draft tool was reviewed by 14 experts, and the translation was done with the help of Bengali, English-speaking, as well as bilingual persons. The translated tool was then piloted on 10 Bengali adults to find out the internal consistency by applying Cronbach's Alpha method. Subsequently, the tool was used to survey 246 Bengali adults from the target communities in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. To make the tool more manageable, reliable, and valid, a factor analysis was calculated on the collected data. Results: The Bengali Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool had good reliability whereby the internal consistency was high at 0.89 Cronbach's Alpha. Out of the initially developed 55 items, 42 were accepted by the experts, and 33 items were obtained after the factor analysis of responses from 246 participants. Conclusion: The Bengali Mental Health Literacy Assessment Tool has been developed as a culturally appropriate, valid, and reliable instrument for use in India and for measuring mental health literacy in Bengali-speaking adults. It is expected that this tool will make a substantial contribution to the study and improvement of literacy about mental health and mental illnesses in this population.

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