(PS10-36) Mental Health Literacy and Digital Psychoeducation for Chinese and White Americans

Abstract Text:

Introduction: Chinese Americans often overlook mental health-related issues and hold a strong stigma toward such topics (Jacobson et al., 2019; Spoont & McClendon, 2020; Hao et al., 2023). Psychoeducation serves an important role in mental health by helping equip people with knowledge and skills (Lukens & McFarlane, 2004). However, for many Chinese Americans, numerous barriers can prevent effective psychoeducation, including model minority myth, lack of multilingual providers, inadequate health insurance, etc. (APA, 2020). Digitally delivered psychoeducation can address these barriers; such interventions can also helping individuals struggling with post-traumatic stress or depressive symptoms (Lehavot et al., 2021; Spence et al., 2014). Whether these interventions are effective for Chinese Americans has not yet been explored. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate whether Chinese Americans differ from non-Hispanic White (NHW) Americans in mental health literacy about PTSD and depression. Additionally, we explored whether these two groups benefit from brief digital psychoeducation videos.

Method: Participants were 69 Chinese and 74 NHW adult US residents, recruited via Prolific. Participants responded to 15 general knowledge questions about PTSD and depression (selected from a pool of 47 questions and pre-piloted in a previous study) before and after viewing educational videos about depression and PTSD. Participants could elect to watch one or both videos. Participants completed PTSD Checklist-5 (PCL-5; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2022), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, 1994), and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al., 2001). Participants were also asked to estimate the likelihood of their continued use of digital mental health programs in the future.

Results: NHW female participants scored significantly higher on baseline knowledge compared to NHW males and Chinese participants (p < 0.05). No relationships were observed between knowledge scores and participants' stress levels, trauma-related or depressive symptoms. No differences in improvement in knowledge were noted between Chinese and NHW participants. However, controlling for pre-psychoeducation knowledge scores, the duration of engagement with psychoeducational material significantly predicted improvement in knowledge in both the NHW and Chinese groups (p < 0.05). Older Chinese participants reported higher likelihood of continuing to use digital mental health resources (p < 0.05); this relationship was not observed among NHW participants. 

Conclusions: The findings suggested that NHW females have significantly higher mental health literacy than their Chinese and male counterparts, and that extended exposure to digital psychoeducational content on PTSD and depression can potentially enhance knowledge across all groups. The differences in mental health knowledge among different gender and ethnic groups are concerning, suggesting the importance of delivering better psychoeducation to males as well as to Chinese Americans. Further research is needed to explore the effectiveness of psychoeducational modules that are both translated into Chinese and culturally tailored to the Chinese American population.