Usefulness of an educational lecture focusing on improvement in public awareness of and attitudes toward depression and its treatments

BACKGROUND: There is an urgent need to establish effective strategies for suicide prevention. Stigma against depression may be a potential anti-protective factor for suicide. Thus, we investigated baseline levels of awareness and attitudes toward depression and its treatment among the general population by our original 18-item questionnaire, which we aimed to validate in the present study. Next, we conducted two types of educational interventions and examined the results to clarify the difference in the quality of these lectures. METHODS: Subjects were 834 citizens (245 males and 589 females) who received an anti-stigma-targeted (n = 467) or non-targeted lecture (n = 367). An 18-item questionnaire assessing levels of awareness and attitudes toward depression and its treatments was administered to each participant before and after the lecture. A chi-square test was used to investigate categorical variables for background data on the participants. Factor analysis of baseline scores was conducted on the 18 questionnaire items. Student’s t-test was used for analysis of the gender effect. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for comparison among the 5 age groups and comparison of the effect of the two lectures. Multiple regression analysis was applied to examine the determinants of improved attitudes after intervention. RESULTS: Public attitudes toward depression consisted of 4 distinct elements, which were disease-model attitudes, help-seeking behavior, negative affect toward depression, and non-medication solutions. Older participants had poorer disease-model attitudes and more negative affect toward depression, whereas younger participants showed poorer help-seeking behavior (p < 0.05). The anti-stigma-targeted lecture was superior to the non-targeted lecture in improving disease-model attitudes and non-medication solutions (p < 0.05). Multiple regression analyses revealed that each subscale score at post-lecture was strongly dependent on its own baseline subscale score (p < 0.01), and that baseline disease-model attitudes also affected post-lecture scores on negative affect toward depression and non-medication solutions (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The educational intervention appears useful for acquiring accurate attitudes toward depression in a medical model. However, other strategies should be considered to enhance help-seeking behavior, especially in younger people.