Depression literacy among people living with HIV/AIDS in a Nigerian tertiary hospital

Introduction: Depression is the most prevalent psychiatric comorbidity linked with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. This study aimed to assess the depression literacy, risk perception, and preferred source of help for depression among people living with HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Material and methods: It was a cross-sectional descriptive survey. The D-lit questionnaire was used to assess depression literacy. Data analyses were completed with IBM Statistical Product and Services Solution for Windows, version 21.0. Descriptive analyses were performed to characterize the survey sample. Open-ended responses were grouped based on the similarity of thematic content and frequencies/percentages reported. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were carried out to compare independent variables, with significance set at p < 0.05. Results: A total of 188 out of 351 questionnaires distributed were completed (response rate, 53.71%). About 53.2% of the respondents (n = 100) had depression knowledge scores less than the average score of 10.54 +/- 2.032. Males had statistically significant higher depression literacy scores than females. The majority of respondents reported that they would seek help from their primary care physician (47.9%, n = 90), while less than one-fifth of them opted to seek help from a psychologist (18.6%, n = 35). A greater proportion of males recommended seeking help from a psychologist compared to females (25.0%, n = 12 vs. 16.4%, n = 23). Conclusions: The people living with HIV/AIDS surveyed had a poor knowledge of depression and the majority felt they were not at risk of getting depressed. A majority of them reported they would seek help from their primary care physician, therefore underscoring the importance of routine depression screening among this population.