Validity and Reliability of a Mental Health Recovery Checklist for Young Adults

The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the internal consistency and construct validity of a self-report checklist measuring clinical mental health recovery across six key domains:family and relationships,occupation and school,physical health,mental health,spirituality,and social support systems.The Mental Health Recovery Checklist(MHRC)was developed at The Dorm,an intensive outpatient mental health treatment program for young adults in New York,NY,and Washington DC that services individuals between the ages of 18 and 35 years old.The present study is cross-sectional,as data were pulled from clients’records who were discharged between January 2018 and May 2023.Pearson Correlations and Cronbach’s alpha were used to determine scale reliability.To establish validity,an Exploratory Factor Analysis(EFA)was conducted to assess a single-factor model using Principal Axis Factoring.Cronbach’s alpha was high(α=0.88),indicating good reliability.In the EFA,all items loaded strongly on a single factor.The unidimensional structure revealed in the EFA highlights the interconnected nature of various life domains as they pertain to mental health recovery in young adults.Future research is warranted to explore whether there are additional dimensions of mental health recovery that have not been assessed in the present scale.

“Goals Give You Hope”:An Exploration of Goal Setting in Young People Experiencing Mental Health Challenges

The mental health of New Zealand’s adolescents is,by global standards,remarkably poor.Addressing such mental health needs is not only pertinent with regards to the quality of life of our young people,but also the health of our society as a whole,with current unmet youth mental health needs becoming future adult population health def-icits.While an array of evidence-based psychotherapies are available as treatment,our knowledge of the mechan-ism of actions underlying each of these is lacking.We propose that the practice of goal setting as a therapeutic technique may represent not only a common element across these therapies,but may also significantly contribute to their relative efficacies.Developing a fuller understanding of goal setting’s usefulness and efficacy,as perceived by youth with mental health difficulties,may serve to aid in the development and deployment of more effective interventions,providing a small stepping-stone on the path towards addressing our current youth mental health crisis.Through a series of semi-structured interviews with nine young people aged 16–24 years old in New Zeal-and,we strive to create a nuanced understanding of young people’s perception and use of goal setting,and its potential significance both within and beyond the realm of psychotherapy.Key themes derived from the data include(1)motivation for goal setting and achieving;(2)barriers to goal setting and achieving;(3)strategies for goal achievement;(4)the role of self-efficacy;(5)the role of support;and(6)benefits of goal setting.Thefind-ings generated from this study suggest that goal setting as a therapeutic technique,when used appropriately,can have significant positive impacts on the emotional state,productivity,and view of the future for young people experiencing mental health challenges.