Association between health literacy, depressive symptoms, and suicide-related outcomes in adolescents: A longitudinal study

Background: Health literacy is associated with mental disorders in adolescents. This study aimed to examine the associations between health literacy, depressive symptoms, and suicide-related outcomes. Methods: In terms of participants, 937 middle school students in Shenyang City, China were enrolled between December 2018 and December 2019 to assess health literacy, depressive symptoms and suicide-related out-comes. Multiple logistic regression models were used to examine possible associations. Results: Adequate health literacy was negatively associated with 12-month follow-up depressive symptoms (RR = 0.115, 95 % CI: 0.032-0.411) and suicide-related outcomes (RR = 0.230, 95 % CI: 0.085-0.618) in females. Meanwhile, in females, interpersonal relationship, stress management, and self-actualization were negatively related to depressive symptoms, while physical activities, self-actualization, and health awareness are protective factors for suicide-related outcomes (P < 0.05 for each). Limitations: Recall and reporting bias might be inevitable for self-reported data, and due to the small sample size, the predictive effect may not be very significant. Conclusions: These findings suggest that adequate health literacy may serve as a critical and independent pro-tective factor for poor long-term mental health outcomes and that the predictive effect is more pronounced in female students. Public health efforts to enhance health literacy levels are required to maintain and improve adolescents' mental health outcomes.