Screening for mental health problems as indicator for evaluation of needs for mental health services

Background Screening questionnaires for mental health problems are useful tools for research and clinical practice. Objectives To identify mental health problems and overall emotional functioning among general population samples in Kosovo as indicators for evaluation of needs for mental health services. Methods It is cross-sectional quantitative study. Participants from two samples: students (filled-out directly) and online respondents ( n  = 540; mean age = 24.84; SD = 8.29) were included in this study. All participants were asked to complete the Albanian translation of Mental Health Inventory (MHI-38). Data processing was done with SPSS 21.0 and Microsoft Excel 2007. Results In total 11.2% of participants ranged at low level of mental health index. Regarding anxiety the high level is found at 51.3% and regarding depression high level is found at 24.5% of participants. A significant gender difference is found whereas females show greater depression ( P  = .022, r  = .09), greater psychological distress ( P  = .000, r  = .17) and lover mental health index ( P  = .000, r  = .17), than males. A significant difference between samples is found whereas online sample show greater psychological distress ( P  = .000, r  = .18), less anxiety ( P  = .001, r  = .13) and lower mental health index ( P  = .000, r  = .22) than direct sample. Conclusions The findings are quite intriguing. Future research is needed to find out more understanding on gender, anxiety, depression, psychological distress and mental health. Socio-cultural aspects can be of great importance to be examined. Despite this, needs for mental health services are inevitably and must be addressed properly.