Madlala Dumisile, Joubert Pierre M, Masenge Andries
Department of Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Tshwane Mental Health District Services, Tshwane, South Africa.
Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Health Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
S Afr J Psychiatr. 2022 Mar 24;28:1661. doi: 10.4102/sajpsychiatry.v28i0.1661. eCollection 2022.
Although mental health literacy is a major determining factor of mental health outcomes and functional capacity of individuals, there is dearth of research on the issue in South Africa.
To assess the literacy of three mental disorders, namely major depressive disorder (MDD), schizophrenia and generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and to compare the resultant assumed literacy level between urban and townships participants.
Five clinics of region 1 in Tshwane, South Africa.
A cross-sectional descriptive study was performed between November 2019 and January 2020. A total of 385 questionnaires were distributed equally in all five clinics. By means of questions about three fictive cases with clinical pictures indicative of MDD, schizophrenia and GAD the following were assessed: recognising a mental disorder, identifying the cause and knowledge about what would help best.
The majority of participants (67.3%) recognised the clinical picture indicative of schizophrenia as a mental disorder, almost half of the participants (49.9%) recognised the clinical picture indicative of MDD as a mental disorder, whilst just more than one third (36.3%) of participants recognised the clinical picture GAD as a mental disorder. Concerning the causes for the clinical pictures, most participants indicated that stress was the cause for MDD and GAD (77.4% and 68.1%, respectively), whilst indicating that biological or psychological (59.5%) causes are relevant to the clinical picture indicative of schizophrenia symptoms. Fewer participants indicated supernatural causes for any of the clinical case (MDD: 2.6%; schizophrenia 15.3%; GAD 4.2%). Most participants chose professional help as the best option for all three cases (MDD 81.3%, schizophrenia 82.2%, GAD 66.1%). The indicators for health literacy in this study show that urban participants had better knowledge than township participants across all questions about the cases.
Overall, the study indicated a variable knowledge regarding the three mental disorders in region 1 of Tshwane and variable literacy levels in townships compared with urban settings. The results indicate that awareness campaigns should focus on the deficient areas.
尽管心理健康素养是个体心理健康结果和功能能力的主要决定因素，但南非在这一问题上的研究匮乏。
评估三种精神障碍，即重度抑郁症（MDD）、精神分裂症和广泛性焦虑症（GAD）的素养，并比较城市和城镇参与者之间由此产生的假定素养水平。
南非茨瓦内第1区的五家诊所。
在2019年11月至2020年1月期间进行了一项横断面描述性研究。共向所有五家诊所平均发放了385份问卷。通过询问三个虚构病例的问题，这些病例的临床表现分别提示MDD、精神分裂症和GAD，评估了以下内容：识别精神障碍、确定病因以及了解什么是最有效的帮助。
大多数参与者（67.3%）将提示精神分裂症的临床表现识别为精神障碍，近一半的参与者（49.9%）将提示MDD的临床表现识别为精神障碍，而略多于三分之一（36.3%）的参与者将提示GAD的临床表现识别为精神障碍。关于临床表现的病因，大多数参与者表示压力是MDD和GAD的病因（分别为77.4%和68.1%），同时表示生物学或心理（59.5%）原因与提示精神分裂症症状的临床表现相关。较少的参与者指出任何临床病例存在超自然病因（MDD：2.6%；精神分裂症15.3%；GAD 4.2%）。大多数参与者选择专业帮助作为所有三种病例的最佳选择（MDD 81.3%，精神分裂症82.2%，GAD 66.1%）。本研究中的健康素养指标表明，在所有关于病例的问题上，城市参与者比城镇参与者有更好的知识。
总体而言，该研究表明茨瓦内第1区对这三种精神障碍的知识存在差异，与城市地区相比，城镇地区的素养水平也存在差异。结果表明，宣传活动应关注不足之处。
