Does literacy education improve symptoms of depression and self-efficacy in individuals with low literacy and depressive symptoms? A preliminary investigation.

Background And Objectives: Individuals with low literacy and symptoms of depression have greater improvement of depression symptoms when their treatment includes education to enhance literacy skills. The reason why literacy enhancement helps depression symptoms is unknown, but we hypothesize that it might be due to improved self-efficacy. We studied whether providing literacy education to individuals with both depression symptoms and limited literacy might improve their self-efficacy.

Literacy education as treatment for depression in patients with limited literacy and depression: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Individuals with limited literacy and those with depression share many characteristics, including low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, and shame.

Objective: To determine whether literacy education, provided along with standard depression treatment to adults with depression and limited literacy, would result in greater improvement in depression than would standard depression treatment alone.

Design: Randomized clinical trial with patients assigned either to an intervention group that received standard depression treatment plus literacy education, or a control group that received only standard depression treatment.