International Journal of Research in Counseling and Education Volume 05 Number 02 2021 ISSN: Print 2620-5750 – Online 2620-5769 DOI: https://doi.org/10.24036/00455za0002 Received October 31 th , 2021; Revised November 16 th , 2021; Accepted December 31 th , 2021 143 http://ppsfip.ppj.unp.ac.id IJRiCE The analysis of mental health awareness constructs in college students during the Covid-19 pandemic based on Rasch Model application Sumi Lestari 1* , Intan Rahmawati 1 , Faizah 1 , Purnama Miftaqhul Risqi 2 , Rania Feraihan 1 1 Psychology Department, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia, 2 Management Department, STIE Mandala, Jember, Indonesia, *Corresponding author, e-mail: lestari.sumi@ub.ac.id Abstract Mental health awareness is a condition when individuals are aware of the importance of mental health in maintaining their positive psychological well-being. Awareness involves prevention of mental problems, identifying mental problems, and self-managing in any possibilities of mental distuption. A way to maintain mental health awareness is to obtain knowledge or information related to disorders, management, and prevention of mental health problems through literacy. Meanwhile, Lack of mental health literacy have been identified as major obstacles for the promotion of mental health and early intervention during this pandemic era. This study aims to develop a measuring instrument by testing the validity and reliability of mental health awareness through literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic towards college students using the Rasch Model approach. The subjects of this study were male and female, college students aged 18 – 25 years and Indonesian citizens. This research was conducted on 307 subjects. The results of the research showed that the mental health awareness scale using Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire is a reliable and valid measuring instrument (α = 0.844) during the COVID-19 pandemic by using the Rasch Model approach and compared to the classical theory of mental health awareness. There are 21 valid items and 8 removed items with no any dimensions are eliminated. Keywords: college students in COVID-19 pandemic, mental health awareness How to Cite: Lestari, S., Rahmawati, I., Faizah, F., Risqi, P.M., & Feraihan, R. (2021). The analysis of mental health awareness constructs in college students during the Covid-19 pandemic based on Rasch Model application. International Journal of Research in Counseling and Education, 5 (2): pp. 143-151, DOI: https://doi.org/10.24036/00455za0002 This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ©2021 by Author. Introduction Governments around the world have taken decisive action to suppress the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019, known as COVID-19, was done after World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 disease outbreak as a global pandemic (Hermans, Broucke, Gisle, Demarest, & Charafeddine, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic is accompanied by a storm of complex information “infodemic”, there is a lot of misinformation and hoaxes (WHO, 2020). Challenges found by Patil et al (2021) is that many sources of health information are inconsistent and tend to be misleading during this pandemic. This situation makes the community tend to be disobedient in implementing the health protocols. Public disobedience can also be caused by inadequate communication strategies and inability to obtain related information. Hance, the public have to realize the importance of health literacy in this issue (Hermans, Broucke, Gisle, Demarest, & Charafeddine, 2021). Health literacy during this period needs special attention throughout the scope of information, from planning to evaluating communication. Low comprehension about health-related information makes professionals responsible for helping the public to access correct information (Damian & Gallo, 2020). Currently, guidelines for the format of news distribution related to COVID-19 are needed. The development of guidelines is essential because information related to the pandemic is still changing frequently. That makes the cycle of rumors or fake news continue to spread and may cause distress, anxiety, and bring up other psychological factors (Sharma et al, 2020). If these conditions persist in the individual in the long-term period, there may be