BackgroundA depression-awareness campaign delivered through the Internet has been recommended as a public health approach that would enhance mental health literacy and encourage help-seeking attitudes. However, the outcomes of such a campaign remain understudied.ObjectiveThe main aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an online depression awareness campaign, which was informed by the theory of planned behavior, to encourage help-seeking attitudes for depression and to enhance mental health literacy in Hong Kong. The second aim was to examine click-through behaviors by varying the affective facial expressions of people in the Facebook advertisements.MethodsPotential participants were recruited through Facebook advertisements, using either a happy or sad face illustration. Volunteer participants registered for the study by clicking on the advertisement and were invited to leave their personal email addresses to receive educational content about depression. The participants were randomly assigned into two groups (campaign or control), and over a four consecutive week period, received either the campaign material or official information developed by the Hospital Authority in Hong Kong. Pretests and posttests were conducted before and after the campaign to measure the differences in help-seeking attitudes and mental health literacy among the campaign and control groups.ResultsOf the 199 participants that registered and completed the pretest, 116 (55 campaign and 62 control) completed the campaign and the posttest. At the posttest, we found no significant changes in help-seeking attitudes between the campaign and control groups, but the campaign group participants demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in mental health literacy (P=.031) and a higher willingness to access additional information (P<.001) than the control group. Moreover, the happy face Facebook advertisement attracted more click-throughs by users into the website than did the sad face advertisement (P=.03).ConclusionsThe present study provides evidence that an online campaign can enhance people’s mental health literacy. It also demonstrates the practicality and effectiveness of an online depression awareness campaign using a Facebook-based recruitment strategy and distribution of educational materials through emails. It is important for future studies to take advantage of the popularity of online social media and conduct evaluative research on mental health promotion campaigns.

Background: Clinical depression has been increasingly prevalent in international health statistics but people are often found to be reluctant to seek help when they encounter depression. However, there is no general theory to explain how personal, social and cultural factors affect an individual's help-seeking intention, nor to guide the design of preventive programmes for such intention once needed. Methods: Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, we deployed the illness narrative approach and interviewed 18 participants in Hong Kong.

In the past few years, there has been an observable phenomenon of Hong Kong millennial Christians moving from Chinese-speaking local churches to English-speaking international churches. To understand the reasons behind the movement, 30 Hong Kong millennial Christians who moved from local churches to international churches were interviewed in this study in four focus groups. Reasons for their movement include: local churches feel like formal education, churches emphasize works over grace, and churches are out of touch and irrelevant from the needs and struggles of millennials’ everyday lives. The international churches are more welcomed by Hong Kong millennial Christians as they have more to offer, including vulnerable leadership, approachable worship style, and a stronger sense of community. The results indicate the faith experience and challenges faced by Hong Kong millennial Christians in the postmodern culture, especially in the unique context of Hong Kong where Eastern culture meets Western. The research suggests a set of recommendations for churches wishing to attract and retain millennials, including the importance for churches to understand their congregants, be prepared for changes, be open to embrace and build an authentic genuine community of faith, and to own a clearly articulated vision. These will be truly helpful in cultivating the spiritual growth of our younger generations to find their place in these millennial-friendly churches.