Assessment of mental health literacy of depression and suicide among undergraduate medical students : a cross-sectional study

Abstract EN

Background: Poor literacy of depression and suicide can be considered a key barrier for help seeking in mental health issues.

Objective: The current study aimed to assess the differences in depression and suicide literacy among medical students in the pre-medical level (2nd and 3 rd year) and clinical level (6th and 7th year); and, to determine which factors predict higher levels of literacy.

Methods: A cross-sectional study recruited 359 students who were in the pre-medical and clinical years.

Measures included a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Depression Literacy Questionnaire (D-Lit), and the modified Suicide Literacy Scale (LOSS).

Results: Clinical years’ students appear to have higher depression and suicide literacy (z=8.343, p=.001; z=4.563, p=.001), respectively.

High depression literacy predicted higher suicide literacy (beta=.356, p=0.001) while previous exposure to psychiatric patients predicted higher depression and suicide literacy (beta=.172, p=.022; beta=.175, p=.032, respectively).

Conclusion: There remains an urgent need to design and implement specific educational programs to improve awareness about depression, suicide and mental health in general starting at the highschool level of education.