Help-seeking behaviour for depressive disorders among adult cardiovascular outpatient cardiac clinic Jimma University Teaching Hospital, Jimma, South-West Ethiopia: crosssectional study

BACKGROUND: Depression in healthy person without cardiac disease has been associated with the development of coronary artery disease and cardiovascular disease also risk factor for development of depression. This has devastating effect the patient’s quality of live, illness progression, morbidity and mortality. Despite this fact help seeking behavior of cardiovascular patients with depression has not been addressed in Ethiopia. OBJECTIVE: To assess help-seeking behaviors of adult cardiovascular patients with depression for their depressive disorders in Jimma university teaching hospital. METHOD: Institution based cross sectional study conducted October to December in 2014. The study was conducted on 353 cardiovascular patients who attended at cardiac clinic. Depression was assessed using patient health questionnaire version nine (PHQ-9), which is validated in Ethiopia, Help seeking behavior using actual help seeking questionnaire and social support using Oslo social support-3 item scale. RESULT: From the total of 339 participants, 57.5% (n = 195) of them fulfill the case definition of depression and 12.1% (n = 41) of participant reported idea of hurting themselves. Only 33.3% sought help for their depression. Of those participants who sought help, 88.6% sought help from one or more of an informal help source. Occupation (odds of = 4.24, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1. 31, 13.78), education level (AOR 7.6, CI 2. 13, 27.11), the presence of a history of mental illness in the family (AOR 7.33, CI 2. 72, 19.80), ideal of hurting themselves, knowing the availability of the psychiatric service in this hospital and having previous seeking help were significantly associated with help seeking behavior. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: The number of patients not seeking help for depression is high. There for scaling up mental health service in tertiary hospitals through multidisciplinary approach should be given high priority.