The effects of brief, passive psychoeducation on suicide literacy, stigma, and attitudes toward help-seeking among Latino immigrants living in the United States.

Abstract

Latino immigrants underutilize mental health treatment services compared with other ethnic groups, despite rates of mental illness that are comparable with those observed among the general population. With regard to suicidal behavior specifically, twice as many Latino suicide attempters do not seek or receive psychiatric services in the year prior to attempting suicide compared with non-Latino White attempters. The main objective of this study was to investigate whether provision of brief, passive psychoeducation in the form of a brochure could increase suicide literacy (i.e., recognizing suicidal behavior, understanding risk factors and causes of suicidal behavior), reduce stigma toward suicidal behavior, and facilitate more positive attitudes toward help-seeking among a population of first-generation Latino immigrants. We hypothesized the participants randomly assigned to the experimental group receiving psychoeducation regarding suicide would demonstrate greater suicide literacy, less suicide stigma, and more positive attitudes toward help-seeking than participants randomly assigned to the control group receiving psychoeducation about exercise. Results revealed that although psychoeducation did significantly increase suicide literacy, it was not effective at changing stigmatizing attitudes toward suicidal individuals or improving attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. However, lower levels of stigma were associated with more positive attitudes toward seeking help. These findings support the potential for a brief educational intervention to increase literacy among this population, but raise questions about how to effectively reduce stigma and improve attitudes toward treatment-seeking.

Refugee and Migrant Health Literacy Interventions in High-Income Countries: A Systematic Review

“…Sixteen studies were conducted in the U.S., United States [20][21][22][23] primarily in Washington DC (N = 5) [24][25][26][27][28], California (N = 3) [29][30][31], and New York (N = 3) [32][33][34]. Three were conducted in Europe (Denmark, Netherlands, and Norway) [35][36][37], and one each in Australia [38], Canada [39], and Taiwan [40].…”

Suicide among Hispanics in the United States

“…Low mental health literacy, stigma, and beliefs about treatment may be barriers to mental health care for Hispanics [41]. Dueweke and Bridges [42] examined whether passive psychoeducation (via brochures) would improve suicide literacy, stigma, and help-seeking attitudes among Hispanic immigrants. Results indicated that although suicide literacy improved, stigma toward suicidal individuals and attitudes toward seeking help did not.…”

Interventions to increase migrants’ care-seeking behaviour for stigmatised conditions: a scoping review

“…All studies were conducted in North America; 15 in the USA and one in Canada. One study sought to increase care-seeking behaviour for Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection [28] and 15 studies for mental health problems (Table 1) [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43].…”

“…Health communication (the strategies used to inform, influence, and motivate audiences about health issues) [44] to increase care-seeking behaviour was tested in ten studies [28,30,[35][36][37][38][40][41][42][43], via three different approaches: entertainment education (EE), community outreach, and nonspecific approaches. Entertainment education (EE) refers to the placement of educational content within entertainment [45]; an approach employed by five studies.…”