Modeling students’ mental health and social inclusion: a psychosocial perspective

Purpose This study aims to examine the factors that influence students’ mental health and social inclusion. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a quantitative approach and empirically analyzes the data gathered via self-administered questionnaire surveys among students in Malaysia. The findings were subjected to multivariate analysis through the application of multiple regression analysis. Purposive sampling was employed in this study, and approximately 236 students from a higher education institution in Labuan, Malaysia, participated in the study. Findings The study demonstrates that the perceived stigma climate, emotional self-efficacy, perceived social inclusion, attitude and mental health literacy substantially impact students’ mental health and social inclusion. Furthermore, it might also be necessary to investigate additional determinants that might be crucial for students’ social inclusion. Research limitations/implications The geographic coverage and factors utilized in the study can be broadened. For generalizability, the study can be broadened by adding more respondents. In addition, to cover more states and regions, future researchers can focus on employing cluster sampling. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the few studies to extend the theory of planned behavior empirically in investigating students’ mental health and social inclusion. The authors’ incorporated novel variables, namely, perceived stigma climate, emotional self-efficacy, perceived social inclusion and mental health literacy, to address the gap.