Associations between college students' personal experience with mental health issues and their mental health literacy: a strengths-based perspective.

Background: Mental health literacy (MHL) programs are a promising approach to help prevent mental health issues (MHI) among college students; however, there is an increasing need to understand individual factors that influence the development of students' MHL.

Aims: Following a strengths-based approach, we examined if college students' individual characteristics and MHI experience were associated with students' MHL.

Methods: Using two vastly different college samples (Sample 1,  = 617; Sample 2,  = 306), we used the Mental Health Awareness and Advocacy framework, guided by the health belief model and social-cognitive theory, to investigate associations between students' mental health literacy, demographic factors, and their previous experience with MHI.