Degree Name
Nursing Practice, DNP
Publication Date
12-2-2025
First Advisor
Lisa Drake
Second Advisor
Sandy King
Abstract
Mental illness is a major healthcare concern affecting young adults enrolled in college. College students enrolled in nursing programs in particular face intense academic pressure due to the demands and rigor of the program. Students commonly report symptoms associated with depression, anxiety, and suicide. Nursing faculty often do not feel comfortable approaching students about these concerns and other related mental health issues. Many faculty members lack the knowledge and skill to identify mental health issues and provide resources to support students in need. Faculty should be mental health literate and aware of campus resources. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to assess and evaluate nursing faculty mental health literacy before and after a customized Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training session. A single-group, quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design was used along with the Mental Health Literacy Measure (MHLM) questionnaire to assess faculty participants (N = 23). Lewin’s Change Model served as a guiding framework to explain and evaluate the effectiveness of the MHFA training. King’s Goal Attainment Theory was also used to explain processes employed to build healthy student-to-faculty relationships to promote departmental and university level change. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed statistically significant improvements in nine items from the MHLM questionnaire (p < .05). Questionnaire responses revealed that faculty gained knowledge related to mental health conditions and treatment options, beliefs and misconceptions were dispelled, and resources were provided to students to support their mental health. MHFA training provides a viable evidence-based intervention that can be used to help faculty improve mental health literacy.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Roberts, Elesha, "Quality Improvement Project: Nursing Faculty Mental Health Literacy Assessment and Evaluation" (2025). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 248.
https://arch.astate.edu/dnp-projects/248
