Empathy and Mental Health Literacy

Background: There is growing literature on mental health literacy (MHL), but few studies have conducted research on anything more than demographic predictors of MHL. We believe that those who are more empathic would be more interested in and more knowledgeable about mental illnesses. Objective: This study was concerned to establish whether people who were more empathic would have higher MHL. Methods: The 129 volunteer, university panel, participants completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and were presented with 15 vignettes describing people with various mental disorders. Questions assessed participants’ identification of the disorders and their perception of the life adjustment of each person. Key Results: The results showed that 3 of the 4 empathy subscales correlated with the MHL score. Results from correlation and regression analyses suggest that people who are more empathic, have studied psychology, and have had personal experience of mental illness demonstrate better MHL. Conclusions: As predicted, people with greater MHL had greater empathy, but this cross-sectional correlational study could not ascertain causal patterns. [Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2017;1(2):e31-e40.] Plain Language Summary: This study addressed whether people who are more empathic tend to be better informed about mental health issues because of their care for, interest in, and sympathy toward those with a range of mental illnesses. This was a questionnaire study and we did indeed find the relationship we thought may occur. However, we cannot be certain which caused which—do those who know more about mental illnesses and how common they are become more empathic or do those with greater empathy learn more about all aspects of mental illness? Adrian Furnham, PhD, is a Professor, University College London. Paula Sjokvist, BSc, is a Graduate, University of College London. © 2017 Furnham, Sjokvist; licensee SLACK Incorporated. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0). This license allows users to copy and distribute, to remix, transform, and build upon the article non-commercially, provided the author is attributed and the new work is non-commercial. Address correspondence to Adrian Furnham, PhD, Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London; 26 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AP, United Kingdom; email: [email protected]. Disclosure: The authors have no relevant financial relationships to disclose. Received: October 30, 2016; Accepted: April 24, 2017 doi: 10.3928/24748307-20170328-01 This study examines whether those who are more empathic have better mental health literacy (MHL). The underlying suggestion is that those who are more interested in the emotional experiences and difficulties of others would develop a greater understanding of mental health issues over time, particularly the recognition of relatively common mental illnesses. Jorm (2000) defined MHL as knowledge of, and beliefs about, mental disorders that aid their recognition, management, and treatment. MHL also relates to the ability to gain access to, understand, and use information in ways that promote and maintain good mental health (Lauber, Nordt, Falcato & Rössler, 2003). This mental health knowledge is considered to facilitate taking appropriate action to benefit one’s own or another person’s mental health (Jorm, 2012; Leighton, 2009, Smith & Shochet, 2011). Such empirical research studies have also identified a substantial discrepancy between a layperson’s