Mental Health Literacy, Positive Mental Health, and Help-Seeking Intention Among Undergraduate Nursing Students: A Correlational Study

Background/Objectives: Mental health literacy (MHL) is considered an important resource for promoting mental health, facilitating the recognition of mental health problems, reducing stigma, and encouraging appropriate help-seeking behaviours. Among undergraduate nursing students, MHL may also be associated with positive mental health and a greater willingness to seek professional support when needed. This study aimed to examine the associations between mental health literacy, positive mental health, and help-seeking intention among undergraduate nursing students. Methods: A correlational study was conducted with 388 nursing students (50.3% enrolled in the second year and 49.7% enrolled in the fourth year), predominantly women (84.0%), with a mean age of 21.76 years (SD = 5.00) and a median of 21.0 years. Results: Nursing students showed relatively high levels of mental health literacy, positive mental health, and help-seeking intention. Small but significant multivariate main effects of year of study and familiarity with mental illness, without interaction, were found on the combined set of global scores. In univariate follow-up analyses that remained significant after Bonferroni correction, students with high familiarity (both close contact with and personal experience of mental health problems) showed lower positive mental health, and fourth-year students reported higher help-seeking intention than second-year students; small differences in mental health literacy and mental health–promoting knowledge did not survive correction. Canonical correlation analysis identified a single significant, modest association between mental health literacy, mainly its attitudinal component and mental health–promoting knowledge, and positive mental health (Rc = 0.42; redundancy indices of 3.5% and 5.8%). In the hierarchical regression predicting help-seeking intention, knowledge of risk factors and causes and positive mental health dimensions (problem-solving and personal fulfilment, interpersonal relationship skills) were positive predictors, as were attitudes that promote recognition. Overall, the final model explained a modest proportion of the variance (R2 = 0.162; adjusted R2 = 0.126). Conclusions: Nursing students display an overall favourable profile of mental health literacy, positive mental health, and help-seeking intention, already high among second-year students; self-selection into the profession is one possible explanation that requires longitudinal confirmation. Differences by year of study and familiarity were small: fourth-year students reported higher help-seeking intention, and students with high familiarity reported lower positive mental health.