Depression Health Literacy and Help-seeking Intention of the Aged Receiving Customized Home Visiting Health Care Services

Doo-Nam Oh; Ji Yun Lee

doi:10.12799/jkachn.2012.23.3.276

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Oh and Lee: Depression Health Literacy and Help-seeking Intention of the Aged Receiving Customized Home Visiting Health Care Services

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing

Journal of Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing 2012; 23(3): 276-285.

Published online: 30 September 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2012.23.3.276

Depression Health Literacy and Help-seeking Intention of the Aged Receiving Customized Home Visiting Health Care Services

Doo-Nam Oh¹, Ji Yun Lee²

¹Department of Nursing · The Research Institute for Basic Science, Hoseo University, Asan, Korea.

²Department of Nursing, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Korea.

Corresponding author: Lee, Ji Yun. Department of Nursing, Kangwon National University, 1 Kangwondaehak-gil, Chuncheon 200-701, Korea. Tel: +82-33-250-8885, Fax: +82-33-242-8840, leejiyun@kangwon.ac.kr

Received 17 April 2012 Accepted 7 September 2012

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to understand levels of both mental health literacy of depression and intention of help-seeking, and then to identify the relationship of them in Korean older adults.

Methods

Participants in this cross-sectional survey were 395 persons over 65 years old receiving customized home visiting health care services at Chungnam province. Data were collected through interviews by visiting nurses in 2011.

Results

The proportion of participants with depression was 61.8% (6.7±3.6). 78.2% of subjects appeared to have help-seeking intention for solving depression. The proportions of participants with ability to recognize depression was 69.1%. Although the level about knowledge and belief in self-help interventions were varied according to questionnaires, subjects understood self-help intervention of smoking accurately (86.3%) and physical activity (85.5%). Ability to recognize depression, knowledge and belief about self-help managements, and opinion of medication for treatment among health literacy variables measured in this study were related to help-seeking intention. In addition, women, visual impairment, and lower depression scores were related to help-seeking intention.

Conclusion

Results demonstrate that it is necessary to improve depression health literacy to manage effectively depression of vulnerable elderly in communities. These results could be used in developing mental health literacy programs.

Keywords: Aged, Depression, Health literacy, Intention

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Socio-demographic Characteristics and Functional Status (N=395)

KDSQ-C=Korean dementia screening questionnaire-C.

Table 2

Depression and Intention of Help-seeking (N=395)

GDS=geriatric depression scale; SD=solving depression.

Table 3

Mental Health Literacy of Depression (N=395)

^†Answering correctly each item.

Table 4

The Relationship of Mental Health Literacy of Depression and Intention of Help-Seeking

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