Abstract
Background: Male suicide prevention strategies include diagnosis and effective management of men’s depression. Fundamental to suicide prevention efforts is public awareness, which in turn, is influenced by literacy levels about men’s depression and suicide.
Aim: To examine sex differences in mental health literacy with respect to men’s depression and suicide among a cohort of Canadian respondents.
Methods: 901 English-speaking Canadian men and women completed online survey questionnaires to evaluate mental health literjavascript:void(0);acy levels using 10-item D-Lit and 8-item LOSS questionnaires, which assess factual knowledge concerning men’s depression and suicide. Statistical tests (chi-square, z-test) were used to identify significant differences between sex sub-groups at 95% confidence.
Results: Overall, respondents correctly identified 67% of questions measuring literacy levels about male depression. Respondents’ male suicide literacy was significantly poorer at 53.7%. Misperceptions were especially evident in terms of differentiating men’s depressive symptoms from other mental illnesses,
estimating prevalence and identifying factors linked to male suicide. Significant sex differences highlighted that females had higher literacy levels than men in regard to male depression.
Conclusions: Implementing gender sensitive and specific programs to target and advance literacy levels about men’s depression may be key to ultimately reducing depression and suicide among men in Canada.
Aim: To examine sex differences in mental health literacy with respect to men’s depression and suicide among a cohort of Canadian respondents.
Methods: 901 English-speaking Canadian men and women completed online survey questionnaires to evaluate mental health literjavascript:void(0);acy levels using 10-item D-Lit and 8-item LOSS questionnaires, which assess factual knowledge concerning men’s depression and suicide. Statistical tests (chi-square, z-test) were used to identify significant differences between sex sub-groups at 95% confidence.
Results: Overall, respondents correctly identified 67% of questions measuring literacy levels about male depression. Respondents’ male suicide literacy was significantly poorer at 53.7%. Misperceptions were especially evident in terms of differentiating men’s depressive symptoms from other mental illnesses,
estimating prevalence and identifying factors linked to male suicide. Significant sex differences highlighted that females had higher literacy levels than men in regard to male depression.
Conclusions: Implementing gender sensitive and specific programs to target and advance literacy levels about men’s depression may be key to ultimately reducing depression and suicide among men in Canada.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Journal of Mental Health |
| Early online date | 29 Apr 2016 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 02 Sept 2016 |
Keywords
- depression and suicide literacy
- men's depression
- male suicide
- masculinity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Health Professions
- General Nursing
- General Social Sciences
- General Psychology
Access to Document
- Men's depression and suicide literacy
Copyright 2016 the authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.