Mentor

Buchholz, Jill

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2026

Abstract

Abstract 

Objective: Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) is an initiative from the National Council for Mental Wellness that trains adults in identifying and responding to adolescents exhibiting mental health distress. This DNP project evaluated the effectiveness of YMHFA in increasing the mental health literacy and confidence scores of Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) adults. Method: quality improvement, pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used. Participants were SDA adults aged 22 to 74 who work with youth in school, church, or camp settings (n=19; Mean age = 48.5 years, SD = 10.5). The quantitative MHFA 2.1 measured mental health literacy and confidence to intervene, both pre- and post-intervention. Results: median mental health literacy scores increased from 4.0 (SD = 0.58, IQR = 1) at pre-test to 5.0 (SD = 2.23, IQR = 0) at post-test. A related samples Wilcoxon signed-rank test confirmed that an increase in knowledge was significant (Z=3.21, p = .001, r = .74). Confidence to intervene median scores rose from 14.0 (SD = 4.22, IQR = 8) at the pretest to 20.0 (SD = 3.33, IQR = 4.22) at the post-test. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed a statistically significant increase in confidence at the post-test (Z = 3.53, p < .001, r = .81). Conclusion: study results suggest that YMHFA is a promising intervention for increasing SDA adults’ mental health literacy and confidence to intervene. PMHNPs may recommend this training to the SDA population in their community as a primary EIP intervention for mental health promotion and suicide prevention.

Key Words: mental health, adolescent suicide prevention, mental health promotion, Youth Mental Health First Aid, Seventh-day Adventist

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