“Mental health for everyone” is a school program for mental health literacy and prevention aimed at secondary schools (13–15 yrs). The main aim was to investigate whether mental health literacy, could be improved by a 3-days universal education programme by: a) improving naming of symptom profiles of mental disorder, b) reducing prejudiced beliefs, and c) improving knowledge about where to seek help for mental health problems. A secondary aim was to investigate whether adolescent sex and age influenced the above mentioned variables. A third aim was to investigate whether prejudiced beliefs influenced knowledge about available help.

Short and valid instruments for measuring factors facilitating or hindering implementation efforts are called for. This article describes (1) the adaptation of a shorter version of the Evidence-based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS-50 items), and (2) the psychometric properties of the shortened version in both US and Norwegian data. The US participants were mental health service providers (N = 418) recruited from clinics providing mental health services in San Diego County, California. The Norwegian participants were psychologists, psychiatric nurses, and psychology students (N = 838) recruited from the Norwegian Psychological Association and the Norwegian Nurses Organization. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach was used. The reduction resulted in 36 items named EBPAS-36, and the original 12 factor model was maintained. The EBPAS-36 had acceptable model fit, as indicated by a low degree of misspecification errors in both the US (RMSEA = .045 (CI90% .040–.049); SRMR = .05) and the Norwegian data (RMSEA = .052 (CI90% .047–.056, SRMR = .07). Incremental model fit was fair in the US (CFI = .93, TLI = .91) and in the Norwegian samples (CFI = .91, TLI = .89). The internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) in the US and the Norwegian samples were good for the total EBPAS-36 score (.79 and .86, respectively) and were ranged from adequate to excellent for the subscales (US .60–.91 and Norway .61–.92). The EBPAS-36 has adequate psychometric properties both in US and Norwegian samples, hence indicating cross-cultural validity. It is a brief, pragmatic, and more user-friendly instrument than the EBPAS-50, yet maintains a broad scope by retaining the original 12 measurement domains.