The Relationship Between Health Literacy on Depression and Depression Prevention Behaviors Among Public Health Students at Muban Chombueng Rajabhat University

Abstract

        This study aimed to 1) study health literacy and depression prevention behaviors of public health students at Muban Chombueng Rajabhat University, and 2) study the relationship between Health literacy and depression prevention behaviors of public health students at Muban Chombueng Rajabhat University. The population studied was public health students at Muban Chombueng Rajabhat University who were studying in the academic year 2024. The research instruments were questionnaires developed by the researcher, including Part 1: general information questionnaire, Part 2: depression literacy questionnaire, and Part 3: depression prevention behavior questionnaire, which were multiple choice and estimation types. The statistics used for data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and correlation using inferential statistics, namely Pearson's Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient.

        The results of the study found that the level of health literacy in accessing information about depression, health literacy and understanding about depression, exchanging information about depression, and sharing information about depression at a moderate level (x̄ = 3.39, S.D. = 0.83), while the level of depression prevention behavior was at a high level (x̄ = 3.41, S.D. = 0.81). The results of the correlation analysis revealed that depression literacy in terms of accessing information about depression, literacy and understanding about depression, exchanging information about depression, and sharing information about depression were significantly related to positive depression prevention behavior at a statistical level of .001, with a very high correlation value (r = 0.803, 0.869, 0.803, 0.797,   P – value = 0.001).