Health care seeking behavior for depression in Northeast Ethiopia: depression is not considered as illness by more than half of the participants.

Background: Depression is one of the most disabling and chronic mental illnesses. Despite its high burden, many people suffering from depression did not perceive that they had a treatable illness and consequently most of them did not seek professional help. The aim of this study was to assess the level of professional help-seeking behavior and associated factors among individuals with depression.

Methods and materials: The community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among residents of Dessie, Northeast Ethiopia. First, 1165 residents were screened for depression using patient health questionnaire and then 226 individuals who were screened positive for probable depression were interviewed with General Help-Seeking Questionnaire to assess the professional help-seeking behavior of participants with depression. Major associated variables were identified using logistic regression with 95% confidence interval (CI), and variables with a p value less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results: Among the total participants with depressive symptoms, only 25.66% of them did seek professional help. Being female [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 2.769, 95% CI (1.280, 5.99)], current alcohol drinking [AOR = 2.74, 95% CI (1.265, 5.940)], co-morbid medical-surgical illness [AOR = 4.49, 95% CI (1.823, 11.071)], perceiving depression as illness [AOR = 2.44, 95% CI (1.264, 4.928)], having moderate depressive symptoms [AOR = 2.54, 95% CI (1.086, 5.928)] and moderately severe depressive symptoms [AOR = 7.67, 95% CI (2.699, 21.814)] were significantly associated with help seeking behavior of participants.

Conclusions: Level of professional help-seeking behavior is as low as previous studies in different countries. The severity of depressive symptoms, co-morbidity of medical-surgical illness, current drinking of alcohol, being female, and perceiving depression as illness were significantly associated with professional help-seeking behavior for depressive symptoms. Working on mental health literacy in the community is important to increase help-seeking behavior.