Mental Health First Aid Training: A Study of Community Members’ Pre and Post-training Responses to a 17-Item Questionnaire

Abstract

Background: Mental Health First Aid, an important component of metal health educational programs, targets naive community members, public, allied mental health personnel, and mental health experts with specific reference as to how these trained aiders should help people in crisis or with mental health conditions in the community. Objective: This study aimed to describe pre-to-post-test assessment of those who were trained in MHFA program. Setting: National Center for Mental Health Promotion, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Methods: Trained mental health professionals organized MHFA courses (n=35) for training self-selected, nonrandomized community members (n=862) who were assessed pre-to-post training by using an adapted 17-item questionnaire for measuring the impact of MHFA course on their mental health knowledge, perception, attitude and practice. Results: The participants’ responses to questionnaire were varied at pre-and post-test evaluation and 65% of them showed mild to significant positive changes in their responses, and the rest were not affected positively after this course, possibly attributed to multiple factors related to naïve community trainees, advanced questionnaire, short timeline and dissimilar instructors. Conclusion: Although all participants well received the MHFA courses, 65% of participants’ pre-to-post-test responses improved positively. The preliminary results of this study are not generalizable to the whole community, need to be cautiously interpreted and this research is calling for more studies especially randomized controlled trials in future.