Public beliefs about the helpfulness of interventions for depression: effects on actions taken when experiencing anxiety and depression symptoms

Objective: Previous research has shown that the public have different belie fs to mental health professionals about the helpfulness of interventions fo r mental disorders. However, it is not known whether the public's beliefs a ctually influence their behaviour when they develop psychiatric symptoms. Method: A postal survey of 3109 Australian adults was used to assess belief s about the helpfulness of a broad range of interventions for depression, a s well as respondents' current level of anxiety and depression symptoms and any history of treated depression. A follow-up survey of 422 persons who h ad a high level of symptoms at baseline was conducted 6 months later. These people were asked which interventions they had used to reduce their sympto ms. An analysis was carried out to see whether beliefs and other factors at baseline predicted subsequent use of interventions. Results: There were some major discrepancies between the ranking of interve ntions as likely to be helpful and the ranking of how frequently they were actually used. Interventions involving mental health professionals were oft en rated as likely to be helpful, but were rarely used in practice. Other s imple, cheap and readily available interventions were used the most frequen tly, but were not the most likely to be rated as helpful. The most consiste nt predictors across all interventions used were gender, history of treatme nt, current symptoms and belief in a particular intervention. Of particular interest was the finding that beliefs in the helpfulness of antidepressant s predicted their use. However, beliefs were not predictors of use for all interventions. Conclusions: Beliefs about the helpfulness of an intervention did not alway s predict actual use of that intervention, although beliefs did predict use of antidepressants. Therefore, campaigns that change public beliefs about effective treatments may also influence actual use of treatments. Intervent ions preferred by professionals are not frequently used at present. Most pe ople with anxiety and depression symptoms rely primarily on simple self-hel p interventions, the effectiveness of which has been little researched.