The Relationship between Mental Health Literacy and Coping Strategies in Preclinical Students of Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Airlangga Class Of 2021-2023

Introductions: Medical students often face psychological pressures, such as stress and burnout, due to various factors such as high academic load, block-based learning system, and personal challenges. One way to cope with such pressures is to improve mental health literacy. This will help students recognize, manage and prevent mental health disorders. By having good mental health literacy, students are expected to be better able to choose adaptive coping strategies such as facing problems directly or seeking social support, compared to less effective coping strategies such as avoiding problems or suppressing emotions. Methods: Quantitative research with an analytical observational method and cross-sectional study design. Results: There were 93 preclinical students of Faculty of Medicine, Airlangga University, Medical Study Program who participated in this study. A total of 92 people (98.9%) had a high level of mental health literacy. Only 1 person (1.07%) was in the category of moderate mental health literacy level, while there were no respondents who were at a low mental health literacy level (0%). The results of coping strategies used by students, as many as 29 people (31.18%) applied problem focused coping strategies, while 64 people (68.82%) used emotion focused coping strategies. Conclusion: There is no significant relationship between mental health literacy and coping strategies at the Faculty of Medicine, Airlangga University. Further research is recommended to add research variables to avoid confounding variables that can affect the research results to be inaccurate.