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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1494333

Depression and health literacy among German adolescents and adults: Findings from two representative samples

Provisionally accepted
Lars König Lars König 1,2*Rebekka Schröder Rebekka Schröder 1*Tim Hamer Tim Hamer 1Ralf Suhr Ralf Suhr 1,2
  • 1 Stiftung Gesundheitswissen, Berlin, Germany
  • 2 Institut für Medizinische Soziologie und Rehabilitationswissenschaft, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany

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

    Depressive disorders constitute a significant public health challenge. Health literacy might be an important factor to consider in prevention strategies for depressive disorders, which is why this study aimed at exploring the association between depressive symptom levels and severity and health literacy, along with additional sociodemographic factors.Materials and Methods. Data were collected from two large samples of adults (N=3011) and adolescents (N=1021) representative of the German-speaking population in Germany. Levels of health literacy (HLS-EU-Q16 questionnaire), depressive symptom severity, rates of depression levels (PHQ-9 questionnaire) and sociodemographic information (age, gender, social status, level of education) were obtained. The associations between sociodemographic factors, health literacy and depression were analyzed using t-tests, analyses of variance and χ 2 -tests.Results. Rates of depression and severity of depressive symptoms were higher in female than male individuals in both samples. Depressive symptom severity and depression rates increased with increasing age in adolescents and decreased with increasing age in adults. Higher levels of education and lower social status were associated with higher depressive symptom severity and rates in adults, with a more heterogeneous picture in adolescents. In both samples, depressive symptom severity and rates were higher in individuals with poorer health literacy.The results point to a potential role for health literacy in preventing depressive disorders. More research is needed with longitudinal and experimental study designs into the question whether public health interventions targeting health literacy improvements could play a critical role in reducing the burden of depression across different age cohorts.

    Keywords: Depression, Depressive Disorder, Health Literacy, Health, Representative, Germany, adolescents, adults

    Received: 10 Sep 2024; Accepted: 04 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 König, Schröder, Hamer and Suhr. 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:
    Lars König, Stiftung Gesundheitswissen, Berlin, Germany
    Rebekka Schröder, Stiftung Gesundheitswissen, Berlin, Germany

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