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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1430272
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring Mental Health in Vulnerable Populations in Developing Countries View all 27 articles

Mental health literacy and the public perception of persons with depression and schizophrenia in Vietnam

Provisionally accepted
Mahan R. Mobashery Mahan R. Mobashery 1*Tam T. Ta Tam T. Ta 1Duc T. Cao Duc T. Cao 2Kerem Böge Kerem Böge 1Luisa Ellinghoff Luisa Ellinghoff 1Van Phi Nguyen Van Phi Nguyen 3Selin Mavituna Selin Mavituna 1Lukas M. Fuchs Lukas M. Fuchs 4Sebastian Weyn-Banningh Sebastian Weyn-Banningh 1Solveig Kemna Solveig Kemna 1Malek Bajbouj Malek Bajbouj 1Eric Hahn Eric Hahn 1
  • 1 Charité University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • 2 103 Military Hospital, Hanoi, Vietnam
  • 3 Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Red River Delta, Vietnam
  • 4 German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), Berlin, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Vietnam's mental health care system is undergoing significant changes since the government has initiated large-scale programs to reform and develop the mental health care infrastructure. Cultural belief systems on mental illnesses influence help-seeking behavior and compliance. This study investigates the belief systems about people with schizophrenia and depression among people living in the Hanoi area.Method: 1077 Vietnamese participants answered two open-ended questions after reading an unlabeled vignette describing a character with the symptoms of schizophrenia or depression. The answers were analyzed using thematic analysis.Results: Of all participants, 88,4 % associated the presented cases with a mental illness, with 91,5% in the case of schizophrenia and 85,1% in the case of depression, so both disorders were conceptualized as mental illnesses. 18,6% mentioned depression when presented with the depression vignette, while only 3,6% recognized schizophrenia in the schizophrenia condition.Conclusions: Almost 9 out of 10 participants considered the presented cases as an example of mental illness, suggesting a high mental health awareness among our participants. The majority did not identify the presented cases as examples of schizophrenia or depression, reflecting little familiarity with Western mental health concepts. It could be interpreted as a sign of relatively low mental health literacy among the study participants.

    Keywords: Schizophrenia, Depression, Vietnam, causal beliefs, Stigma & Awareness, Mental health literacy, Cross cultural psychiatry

    Received: 09 May 2024; Accepted: 17 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Mobashery, Ta, Cao, Böge, Ellinghoff, Nguyen, Mavituna, Fuchs, Weyn-Banningh, Kemna, Bajbouj and Hahn. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Mahan R. Mobashery, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.