Teo Alan R, Marsh Heather E, Liebow Samuel B L, Chen Jason I, Forsberg Christopher W, Nicolaidis Christina, Saha Somnath, Dobscha Steven K
Health Services Research and Development Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care, Department of Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System, Portland, OR, United States.
Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2018 Feb 26;20(2):e62. doi: 10.2196/jmir.9007.
The media has devoted significant attention to anecdotes of individuals who post messages on Facebook prior to suicide. However, it is unclear to what extent social media is perceived as a source of help or how it compares to other sources of potential support for mental health problems.
This study aimed to evaluate the degree to which military veterans with depression use social media for help-seeking in comparison to other more traditional sources of help.
Cross-sectional self-report survey of 270 adult military veterans with probable major depression. Help-seeking intentions were measured with a modified General Help-Seeking Questionnaire. Facebook users and nonusers were compared via t tests, Chi-square, and mixed effects regression models. Associations between types of help-seeking were examined using mixed effects models.
The majority of participants were users of social media, primarily Facebook (n=162). Mean overall help-seeking intentions were similar between Facebook users and nonusers, even after adjustment for potential confounders. Facebook users were very unlikely to turn to Facebook as a venue for support when experiencing either emotional problems or suicidal thoughts. Compared to help-seeking intentions for Facebook, help-seeking intentions for formal (eg, psychologists), informal (eg, friends), or phone helpline sources of support were significantly higher. Results did not substantially change when examining users of other social media, women, or younger adults.
In its current form, the social media platform Facebook is not seen as a venue to seek help for emotional problems or suicidality among veterans with major depression in the United States.
媒体大量关注了那些在自杀前在脸书上发布信息的个人轶事。然而，目前尚不清楚社交媒体在多大程度上被视为一种求助来源，或者它与其他潜在的心理健康问题支持来源相比如何。
本研究旨在评估与其他更传统的求助来源相比，患有抑郁症的退伍军人使用社交媒体寻求帮助的程度。
对270名可能患有重度抑郁症的成年退伍军人进行横断面自我报告调查。使用改良的一般求助问卷测量求助意向。通过t检验、卡方检验和混合效应回归模型对脸书用户和非用户进行比较。使用混合效应模型检查不同求助类型之间的关联。
大多数参与者是社交媒体用户，主要是脸书用户（n = 162）。即使在对潜在混杂因素进行调整后，脸书用户和非用户的总体求助意向均值相似。脸书用户在遇到情绪问题或自杀念头时，极不可能将脸书作为寻求支持的场所。与向脸书求助的意向相比，向正式（如心理学家）、非正式（如朋友）或电话热线等支持来源求助的意向明显更高。在研究其他社交媒体用户、女性或年轻人时，结果没有实质性变化。
就目前的形式而言，社交媒体平台脸书在美国患有重度抑郁症的退伍军人中，并未被视为寻求情绪问题或自杀相关帮助的场所。
