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General population surveys
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Surveys among the general population - general information
The general population is being interviewed by telephone in several EAAD intervention regions to gain insight into the broad public’s understanding of depression and to detect “inappropriate” beliefs (e.g. about the supposed addictive properties of antidepressants). To assess effects of EAAD public information campaigns, different randomly selected samples of inhabitants in EAAD intervention and control regions are surveyed at baseline and follow-up to avoid biased responses.
In general, the EAAD core items form also the basis of surveys among the broad public. According to individual interest, further items or instruments aiming at similar areas of information, attitudes or knowledge may be added as long as it can be assured that the EAAD core items are covered.
So far, the following instruments are available and applied by EAAD partners:
The “questionnaire for the general public” by Hegerl et al. (2003) aims to gain insight into beliefs and attitudes of the broad public towards depression and its treatment. It was developed in the framework of the “Nuremberg Alliance against Depression” to evaluate the citywide public information campaign (please see below). It covers different aspects of the topic depression (e.g. symptoms, causes, treatment options) but only briefly involves the topic suicidality.
The “NSRF baseline questionnaire for the general public” developed by the Irish EAAD partners (E. Arensman) combines the depression related items of the Nuremberg questionnaire (see above) with the “Attitudes towards suicide questionnaire” (ATTS) additionally covering the topic suicidality.
The “Mori Poll Questionnaire” was developed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in association with the Royal College of General Practitioners (Paykel et al. 1998). It has been used in the Defeat Depression campaign in England to assess changes in public attitudes. It was administered before and after the public campaign and contains questions on 3 major areas: (1) perception of depression, (2) views on treatment of depression and (3) views on GPs.
Results of the Nuremberg pilot study
Methods: In November and December 2000 and 2001 telephone surveys were conducted in the cities of Nuremberg and Wurzburg in cooperation with the “Projektgruppe CATI” affiliated to the “Bayerischer Forschungsverbund Public Health – Öffentliche Gesundheit” in Munich. Random samples of telephone numbers of private households were drawn out of the CD-ROM based telephone directory “KlickTel” in 2000 and 2001. Half of the samples were Nuremberg and Wurzburg inhabitants, respectively. In the year 2000 2,746 target persons aged 18-99 were contacted. 1,426 persons were willing to participate in the interview, resulting in a response rate of 51.9%. In the year 2001 a second, independent sample of 2,203 target persons was drawn of whom 1,508 persons (response rate: 68,5%) participated in the survey.
Interview: The interview was conducted in both years with only minor differences. It was fully structured and began with a question concerning the severity of several widespread or well known diseases. The second question-block asked respondents to evaluate causes, symptoms and treatment of depression. A couple of questions covered pharmacotherapy in particular. Further questions were related to personal experiences with depression and the respondents’ information seeking behaviour. Finally socio-demographic characteristics were assessed. The interview took 11 minutes on an average.
Results: In 2000, most people considered depression a serious illness that can be treated fairly well by a professional. Concerning the proper means for this, it was found that the well-known bad reputation of psychotropic drugs still prevails. Since 2001 a prominent part of the activities of the Nuremberg Alliance was a citywide campaign informing the public about causes and treatment of depression. Although the campaign had been performed for only 10 months, slight to moderate effects concerning causes and treatment of depression were observed in both cities. However, no effects were found with respect to the misconceptions about pharmacotherapy.
More information about the Nuremberg public opinion survey can be found at Hegerl et al. (2003).
References
- Hegerl, U., Althaus, D., Stefanek, J. (2003). Public Attitudes Towards Treatment of Depression: Effects of an Information Campaign. Pharmacopsychiatry 36(6), 288-291.
- Paykel, E.S., Hart, D., Priest, R.G. (1998). Changes in public attitudes to depression during the defeat depression campaign. British Journal of Psychiatry 173(DEC.), 519-522.
Viimati uuendatud: 21.12.2011