Associations between Depression Literacy and the Use of Traditional and Digital Media among Students of Moscow Universities

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

School of Sociology, Institute of Education, HSE University

Abstract

Background and Objective: Depression literacy refers to knowledge and beliefs that facilitate the recognition, management, and prevention of depression, and traditional versus digital media are key channels through which mental health information is accessed. The study examined relationships between depression literacy and media consumption patterns among undergraduate students in Moscow universities.

Materials and Methods: In May 2022, a cross-sectional online survey of 420 undergraduate students at Moscow universities was conducted using convenience and snowball sampling. Depression literacy was assessed with a researcher-developed instrument grounded in the Mental Health Literacy framework and ICD-11 criteria. Kendall’s tau correlations were computed in RStudio with significance set at p<0.05.

Results: Students demonstrated moderate depression literacy, with higher consumption of television and radio associated with greater literacy and higher use of social networks and messaging apps associated with lower literacy.

Conclusion: Differential associations between traditional and digital media consumption and depression literacy suggest tailoring mental health interventions to specific media channels and student populations.

Keywords

Acknowledgements: None.


Availability of Data and Materials: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.


Conflicts of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.


Consent for publication: Not applicable.


Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate: The participants provided written informed consents. The research received institutional ethics approval (HSE University Research Ethics Committee, Protocol No. 76 (16.11.2021)) and adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki and Russian human-subjects standards.


Funding: The research was not funded.


Authors’ Contributions: First author of the manuscript was involved in study design and wrote the article text, performed all calculations and did literature review. Second and third authors were involved in study design and harvested the data.

 

Open Access Policy: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Journal of Health Literacy

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Available Online from 14 October 2025

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