Impact of Public Health Campaigns on Mental Health Awareness: A Nursing Approach

Abstract

Though there has been more focus on the issue, mental health disorders remain a major global health burden, with stigma and lack of knowledge making prevention and treatment very difficult. In this context, public health campaigns have become important mechanisms for improving mental health literacy, decreasing stigma, and increasing help-seeking behaviors. Public health campaigns have been effective in health promotion and disease prevention in other areas of health, but there lacks studies of successful campaigns for mental health awareness and the role of nursing in this area. This review paper aims to explore the impact of public health campaigns related to mental health awareness with a focus on the role of nursing perspective in the crucial design, implementation, and evaluation processes of these initiatives. This review synthesises findings from recent studies and campaigns to highlight approaches that have been shown to increase community reach and mental health literacy. It also describes the roles nurses as frontline health care providers and leaders within the community play in supporting these campaigns through public education, psychosocial support for patients and families and advocacy for policy level change. The results highlight the effectiveness of public health campaigns that are sustained, culturally- specific, and based on the available evidence, if built into nursing practice and mental health services in general as a whole to obtain better mental health outcomes and a state of general wellness. This paper offers future directions for research and practice to increase the global impact of mental health awareness.