Mental Health Literacy about Psychosis and Depression
Poster C2, Saturday, October 22, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm, Le Baron
Nina Schnyder1, Chantal Michel1, Benno G. Schimmelmann1, Frauke Schultze-Lutter1; 1University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern
“Mental health literacy” (MHL) was defined as the knowledge about prevention, detection and intervention of mental illness. It is considered to be crucial for early detection and help-seeking. MHL of the general population about depression was found to be better than of psychosis and generally increased over years. We investigated the current knowledge about depression and psychosis in a randomly selected general population sample. 1527 out of 2124 (71.5%) participants of a telephone survey (age 16 to 40) answered a questionnaire on MHL and attitudes whose two versions varied in their diagnostically unlabeled case vignette (psychosis or depression). The type of the vignette had a moderate effect on correctly recognizing the disorder in an open question (Cramer’s V=0.296) with depression being more often recognized than psychosis. The type of the vignette had a larger effect on the two main causal explanations chosen from 18 categories (Cramer’s V=0.394). Considering the correct diagnosis, the difference of causal explanations for the two disorder became even more pronounced: biological causal explanations were more often attributed to psychosis while for depression psychosocial causal explanation were more often attributed (Cramer’s V= 0.449). Within the last 20 years, a continuous increase in the correct recognition of depression and psychosis can be observed with psychosis still being more frequently under-recognized. Furthermore, the trend towards adopting causal explanations approved of by psychiatrists continued.
Topic Area: Epidemiology