Abstrak
Mental health is one of Indonesia?s public health development goals. The Pangandaran District Administration of West Java is an expanded district that actively carries out various development programs, including mental health programs. This study aimed to identify public knowledge about mental health in Pangandaran District using quantitative descriptive method. The research population comprised residents of the Pangandaran District, and a sample was collected via cluster multistage sampling technique. The sample was gradually determined in the order of subdistricts, villages, subvillages, community units, and neighborhood units. The total sample was composed of 113 respondents. The questionnaire was developed based on theories and concepts on public mental health and distributed to participants after validity and reliability tests were conducted. The construct validity test result was between 0.303 and 0.764, which meant that all items were valid. The Kuder-Richardson 20 formula was used to test reliability, and the reliability coefficient was 0.887. Mathematical calculations were used for data analysis; data are presented as frequency distributions. In this study, 61.10% of the respondents had ?less? knowledge, 33.59% had ?good? knowledge, and the remaining 5.30% had ?enough? knowledge of mental health. The results suggest that the local government should provide mental health education for the residents. For educational institutions, mental health programs should be a fundamental offering in Indonesian society.
