Mental Health Literacy of Depression: A Preregistered Study Reconsidering Gendered Differences Using Filmed Disclosures

Swami, Viren, Grüneis, Clemens G., Voracek, Martin and Tran, Ulrich S. (2021) Mental Health Literacy of Depression: A Preregistered Study Reconsidering Gendered Differences Using Filmed Disclosures. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 22 (4). pp. 678-689. ISSN 1939-151X

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Abstract

The study of mental health literacy is well-developed, but the basic methodology used in this research (i.e., the use of text-based vignettes) has not changed substantively in over two decades of work. Here, we developed novel filmed disclosures to re-assess mental health literacy of depression in a preregistered study utilizing a randomized, fully within-subjects design. A total of 405 adults from Austria (57% women, age M = 32.5 years) viewed short (~3 min) filmed disclosures by a female or male target and were asked to report if they thought anything was wrong with the targets and, if so, to describe what they thought was wrong. Participants also rated the targets on a range of attitudinal dimensions and completed measures of conformity to masculine norms and expressivity. The majority of participants (93.8%) correctly identified that something was wrong with the targets and, of those that did, the majority (69.2%) correctly described cases of depression. Neither target nor participant gender significantly influenced symptom recognition. Gendered effects were also largely null in terms of perceived distress, treatment difficulty, sympathy, and likelihood of recommending help for the targets, and both conformity to masculine norms and expressivity had minimal impact on attitudinal dimensions. These results highlight the potential utility of filmed disclosures in the study of mental health literacy and suggest that gendered effects reported in previous studies may be an artifact of the use of text-based vignettes.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Keywords:	Mental health literacy, Filmed disclosure, Gender differences, Study preregistration, Within-subjects design
Faculty:	Faculty of Science & Engineering
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic User
Depositing User:	Symplectic User
Date Deposited:	17 Feb 2021 11:47
Last Modified:	25 Jan 2022 12:03
URI:	https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/706282

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