Serbian Short Version of the Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire for Young People (MHLq-yp): Validation with a Sample of Elementary School Students

The last few decades have brought an elaboration of the concept and the development of valid and reliable measures of mental health literacy (MHL) in adults, children, and adolescents. Nevertheless, most of the empirical evidence on MHL has come from developed, high income Western countries. The present study aimed to develop a Serbian short version of the Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire for Young People (MHLq-yp), suitable for application in elementary school settings. The original version of the MHLq-yp has been adapted into Serbian following the translation-back methodology and think-aloud procedure. This questionnaire was validated in a sample of 386 primary school students (52.2% girls), whose age ranged from 11 to 14 years (Mage=12.63, SDage=0.88). Based on exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency indices, a short version of the instrument was developed, which showed good internal and convergent validity.