An exploration into gender and generational differences in mental health literacy in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Abstract

Mental distress touches the lives of many. Society could benefit from enhancing the public’s ability to effectively assist in its identification, management, and prevention. Mental health literacy is a concept that assesses this capacity in the general population. Prior international research indicates that both gender and generational differences for this construct exist, with men and older adults typically exhibiting lower levels of mental health literacy. However, we currently lack an accurate understanding of why such patterns have emerged and an evaluation of whether these differences may be influenced by measurement bias. This study seeks to enhance our understanding of these differences. Using a cross-sectional quantitative study design, a total of 830 participants aged 18 to 76 from Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia completed an online questionnaire measuring their mental health literacy and restrictive emotionality. Men demonstrated lower levels of mental health knowledge and attitudes than women, while partial support was found for a linear pattern of differences across generations for mental health attitudes (with older generations exhibiting lower mental health attitude scores than younger generations). However, given the lack of evidence to support measurement invariance, it is possible that these observed differences were influenced by differences in measurement properties. The results did not support the assertion that younger generations would be more likely to falsely detect the presence of a mental health disorder when presented with a vignette describing normal levels of distress in a difficult situation. Additionally, the study did not find evidence that restrictive emotionality mediates the relationship between gender and mental health attitudes. Overall, this study raises the possibility that gender and generational differences in mental health literacy may be influenced by measurement bias. The findings also suggest that the broad conceptualisation of mental health literacy as a multidimensional construct may fail to adequately capture the nature and strength of the relationships between the variables that it is comprised of. Additionally, these results contrast voices from concept creep literature suggesting an expanding concept of harm concerning mental health terminology among younger generations. Rather, this study suggests that perceived generational differences within this area may be exaggerated.