Despite the high prevalence of mental disorders, mental health literacy has been comparatively neglected. People's symptom-management strategies will be influenced by their mental health literacy. This study sought to determine the feasibility of using the World Health Organization mhGAP-Intervention Guide (IG) as an educational tool for one-on-one contact in a clinical setting to increase literacy on the specified mental disorders.

This study was conducted in 20 health facilities in Makueni County, southeast Kenya which has one of the poorest economies in Kenya. It has no psychiatrist or clinical psychologist. We recruited 3267 participants from a community that had already been exposed to community mental health services. We used Mental Health Knowledge Schedule to measure the changing patterns of mental health knowledge after a period of 3 months, following a training intervention using the WHO mhGAP-IG.

Overall, there was a significant increase in mental health related knowledge [mean range 22.4–23.5 for both post-test and pre-test scores (p < 0.001)]. This increase varied with various socio-demographic characteristics such as sex, marital status, level of education, employment status and wealth index.

mhGAP-IG is a feasible tool to increase mental health literacy in low-resource settings where there are no mental health specialists. Our study lends evidence that the WHO Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2020 and reduction of the treatment gap may be accelerated by the use of mhGAP-IG through improving knowledge about mental illness and potentially subsequent help seeking for early diagnosis and treatment.

High rates of mental illness and addictions are well documented among youth in Nicaragua. Limited mental health services, poor mental health knowledge and stigma reduce help-seeking. The Mental Health Curriculum (MHC) is a Canadian school-based program that has shown a positive impact on such contributing factors. This pilot project evaluated the impact of the MHC on mental wellness and functioning among youth in Leon, Nicaragua.

High school and university students (aged 14–25 years) were assigned to intervention (12-week MHC; n  =  567) and control (wait-list; n  =  346) groups in a non-randomized design. Both groups completed measures of mental health knowledge, stigma and function at baseline and 12 weeks. Multivariate analyses and repeated measures analyses were used to compare group outcomes.

At baseline, intervention students showed higher substance use (mean difference [MD]  =  0.24) and lower perceived stress (MD = −1.36) than controls (p  <  0.05); there were no other group differences in function. At 12 weeks, controlling for baseline differences, intervention students reported significantly higher mental health knowledge (MD  =  1.75), lower stigma (MD  =  1.78), more adaptive coping (MD  =  0.82), better lifestyle choices (MD  =  0.06) and lower perceived stress (MD = −1.63) (p  <  0.05) than controls. The clinical significance as measured by effect sizes was moderate for mental health knowledge, small to moderate for stigma and modest for the other variables. Substance use also decreased among intervention students to similar levels as controls (MD  =  0.03) (p > 0.05).

This pilot investigation demonstrates the benefits of the MHC in a low-and-middle-income youth population. The findings replicate results found in Canadian student populations and support its cross-cultural applicability.