Assessment of a website aimed at providing information on mental health to secondary school students in Can Tho city, Vietnam

Dat Tan Nguyen*, Tam Thi Pham, E. Pamela Wright, Joske Bunders

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Background: The stigmatization of mental health problems is a primary barrier for young people to approach mental health services when they suspect they might have such problems. Nevertheless, the internet has become a common platform on which they are likely to seek information on mental health. As such, this study aimed to explore responses from secondary school students in Can Tho city regarding suckhoetre.vn website. This website provided information on health and mental health, and this study assessed the potential relevance, appeal, accessibility, usefulness, and sustainability of the website. Methods: A cross-sectional study included 643 secondary school students in Can Tho city selected by cluster sampling. Two weeks after the students were introduced to the website, they were invited to evaluate it using an anonymous questionnaire. The Chi-squared test was used to assess the significance of differences in the distribution of selected students’ sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Most (98.6%) participants visited the website in the two-week period, 74% once or twice a week, the others more often, up to once a day. Their activities included reading information (85.8%), seeking help (17.7%), sharing information (15.5%), giving advice to others (11.0%), and chatting or giving comments (9.8%). Most students rated the website very highly in terms of appeal, relevance, accessibility, and usefulness, and wanted to have access to the website in the future. These findings are positive signals to pursue the possible use of a website on mental health for secondary school students to help raise awareness and support good mental health among adolescents in Can Tho city and beyond. Conclusion: A website designed to provide information to secondary school students appeared to be a promising way to provide access to information on the topic of mental health. The website should be maintained and introduced widely to students, teachers and parents, with regular evaluation of the effectiveness of this website.

Original languageEnglish
Article number64
Pages (from-to)1-8
Number of pages8
JournalChild and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health
Volume15
Early online date10 Nov 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank the Coordinator Board for the project at Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam. We would especially like to thank the secondary school students who gave their time to participate in this study.

Funding Information:
We acknowledge the financial support of the “Strengthening teaching and research capacity of preventive medicine staffs to meet the challenges of emerging infections and new environmental hazards to health” Project from the Dutch Organisation for International Cooperation Dutch Organisation for Internationalisation in Education (NUFFIC) and the Dutch government.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).

Keywords

  • Can Tho
  • Internet
  • Mental health
  • Students
  • Vietnam
  • Website

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