Using design thinking to explore mental health stigma: accessibility in educational institutions

Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community onlyThe stigma associated with mental health and related topics is still prevalent, especially in educational institutions. Adequate mental health resources are still lacking in schools, and students do not often engage in resources if they are available. Previous research has shown that there is a wealth of mental health information out there and different interventions to reduce stigma have been proposed. However, much has not been done to fully explore how to truly make the topic of mental health more mainstream in educational institutions and how to improve the mental health resources seeking behavior of students. Facilitating mental health resources seeking behaviors and the availability of mental health resources is important in helping to reduce mental health-related stigma. A digital toolkit was developed and tested to establish if a user-centered web app could provide access to relevant mental health resources and foster mental health seeking behaviors among students.This is a 6 hour creative projectThesis (M.A.