Mental Health Literacy and Help-Seeking Behaviour among Pregnant women in the New Juaben Municipality, Eastern Region.

Abstract

Background: Mental health literacy (MHL) is a major impediment to receiving mental health care. Little is known about how pregnant women comprehend mental health difficulties during pregnancy, particularly in low and middle-income countries like Ghana and how this influence help-seeking for mental health services. Aim: The study investigated Mental Health Literacy and Help-Seeking behavior among pregnant women in the New Juaben Municipality to fill the gap mentioned above and contribute to the cross-cultural literature on perinatal mental health. Method: The study adopted a quantitative cross-sectional design. A total of 195 respondents were selected using simple random sampling. Trained personnel collected the data using a questionnaire adapted from previous research and uploaded on google forms for the data collection. The data were explained using both descriptive and inferential statistics. For processing and analysis, data were entered into the statistical program STATA version 17. To make presenting easier, enormous data sets were condensed into straightforward formats using descriptive statistics. The Fisher exact or Chi-square test was used as applicable to confirm the discrepancy between categorical variables. With the accompanying p-value, this evaluated the association between the dependent and independent variables. Results: The study found that mental health literacy was generally high (54%) among the respondents. Most pregnant women agreed that the victim of mental health disorder needs close family members/friends at her current stage. More than half (56.4%) of participants provided high knowledge of symptoms and recognition of pathological behaviour. About 40.5% of respondents strongly agreed to depression as a symptom of the described mental disorder. Help-seeking behaviour was determined by the marital status of the pregnant woman, the number of pregnancies and the number of births. Generally, help-seeking behaviour was low (13.6%) among study respondents. It was revealed that pregnant women prefer to consult counsellors, social workers, psychologists and close family members when they encounter mental health challenges. The study also revealed that generally, there was low mental health literacy and health-seeking. Conclusion: Pregnant women were literate on mental health management. Whiles they were more informed about symptoms and recognition of pathological behavior, they were not certain of knowledge on the aetiology of behavior. It was also revealed that pregnant women prefer to consult counselors, social workers, psychologists and close family members when facing mental health/ psychological challenges. The study findings also revealed that pregnant women prefer to seek help from health professionals than religious leaders and herbalists. Pregnant women’s knowledge of mental health case management correlated positively with their help-seeking behavior. In other words, an increase in the mental health literacy level among pregnant women in the municipality will significantly increase their behavior of seeking help from health professionals whenever they experience mental health challenges. This will help pregnant women recommend seeking help from health professionals to whoever is experiencing a mental health challenge.