Abstract

There is a need to evaluate the efficacy of mental health educational programs designed to improve skills in university students to support themselves and others experiencing mental health crises. The Objective Structured Video Examination (OSVE) utilises a virtual platform to assess the understanding of communication skills in response to mental health contingency. There is a lack of research into the psychometric properties of the OSVE in the tertiary education context. The aim of this study was to determine the split-half reliability, inter-item reliability, and concurrent validity of the OSVE evaluating mental health literacy and crisis communication skills in tertiary university students. Method: This study is a secondary analysis of data collected from 96 tertiary university students enrolled in the “Talk-to-Me” Mass Open Online Learning Course. Participant scores from the OSVE were correlated against scores from the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory Revised. Consumer and Community Involvement: University students and mental health consumers had been involved in the co-production of the MOOC. Results: The OSVE’s reliability was determined by measuring the consistency between items using Spearman-Brown prophecy (0.45) formula and Cronbach’s alpha (0.42). A weak, but statistically significant negative concurrent validity was detected (r = -0.38, p < 0.05). Conclusion: The OSVE showed promise as an evaluation tool in assessing crisis communication skills in university students and would benefit from further refinement and testing.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.