What’s up with everyone?: The effectiveness of a digital media mental health literacy campaign for young people

Curran, Thomas ORCID: 0000-0003-2443-5079, Ito-Jaeger, Sachiyo, Perez Vallejos, Elvira and Crawford, Paul (2023) What’s up with everyone?: The effectiveness of a digital media mental health literacy campaign for young people. Journal of Mental Health, 32 (3). 612 - 618. ISSN 0963-8237

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Abstract

Background In 2021, the Arts and Humanities Research Council commissioned a mass-media mental health campaign called “What’s up With Everyone?” Here, innovative co-created messages were professionally storied and animated by an internationally recognized production company and focused on improving mental health literacy in five core areas: competition, social media, perfectionism, loneliness and isolation, and independence. Aims This study examines the impact of the “What’s up With Everyone?” campaign on young people’s mental health awareness. Methods Seventy-one (19 males, 51 females, M age = 19.20 years, SD = 1.66, range = 17–22) young people completed a one-sample, pre-post experiment to measure changes in knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and stigma of mental health struggles, as well as help-seeking for mental ill-health before and following exposure to animations. Results Paired and one-sample t-tests revealed that knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and willingness to seek support improved at post-test. There were also significant reductions in the stigma towards depression following the animations. Conclusions Continued long-term investment in campaigns such as “What’s up With Everyone?” seems warranted given the impact on mental health awareness, help-seeking, and stigma.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/ijmh20
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Authors
Divisions:	Psychological and Behavioural Science
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HM Sociology B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Date Deposited:	25 Feb 2023 00:15
Last Modified:	15 Apr 2024 21:12
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/118268

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