BackgroundDepression is a leading cause of disability and has been projected to become the 2nd most burdensome disease by the year 2020; depression has also been found to be the strongest single risk factor for attempted or completed suicides. Adolescent-onset mood disorders are frequently unrecognized or misdiagnosed and often go untreated. While there is a growing literature on the mental health literacy of adults, there has not been a parallel interest in the mental health literacy of young people in Nigeria.MethodsThe study was a cross-sectional descriptive survey conducted among students of a Federal Government College (high school) in south-east Nigeria. All consenting students in the senior secondary classes (grades 10–12) were recruited, making a total of 285 participants. The participants were presented with the ‘friend in need’ questionnaire designed to elicit the participants’ recognition of the disorder depicted in two vignettes and their recommendation about the appropriate source of help-seeking. One vignette was of a clinically depressed case while the other vignette was about a girl undergoing normal life crisis.ResultsOut of the 285 students recruited into the study, 277 questionnaires were adequately completed indicating a response rate of 97.2%. A total of 4.8% (n = 13) participants correctly identified and labelled the depression vignette. Only four respondents (1.5%) recommended professional help from a Psychiatrist or Psychologist. Insomnia was the most identified symptom of distress for depression (17.1%). Females demonstrated higher mental health literacy, in terms of their ability to correctly label the depression vignettes, their expression of greater concern over a depressed peer than males, their expectation that depression requires a longer recovery than normal teenage problems and in their ability to identify individual symptoms of depression. Family and friends were the most recommended source of help.ConclusionMental health literacy was abysmally low amongst the adolescents surveyed. There’s an urgent need to increase mental health awareness in Nigeria.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13033-018-0186-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Central to Cultural Studies is the focus on constructions and contestations of various categories of identity, including sexuality, abilities and race (King, 2016). The definition of the term 'culture' is however, heavily debated (Bodley, 2011). While Stein and Rowe (2006) define culture as a learned and systematic behaviour passed down from one generation to the next, Kagawa-Singer and Chung (1994: 198) see culture 'as a tool which defines reality for its members', arguing further that people's perception of reality emerges through the process of socialisation which shapes beliefs, practices, norms, behaviours and values in a given society. The exploration of cultural factors in this article draws from the Kagawa-Singer and Chung's (1994) conceptualisation of culture because it effectively captures the inclusiveness and complexity of culture as a tool that crafts practices and influences decision-making. Historically, culture has always served as a tool which influences how ideas and practices gain hegemony and ultimately become normative (King, 2016). The concept of culture plays a significant role in influencing reproductive rights of Nigerian women living in Nigeria and more precisely in the decision making around birth control, where the outcomes of pregnancy shapes a woman's life trajectory (Iyanda and Nwankwo, 2018; Atchison et al., 2019). Some cultural factors achieve this through silencing of female voices, subordination of the female bodies and subjectivities to male ones, and outright devaluation of femininity (King, 2016). In this article, feminist poststructuralism as both an epistemological and theoretical approach informs the exploration of cultural factors that impact on the reproductive rights of women of Nigerian heritage living in the UK. According to Weedon (1987:40-41), feminist poststructuralism is 'a mode of knowledge production which uses poststructuralist theories of language, subjectivity, social processes and institutions to understand existing power relations and to identify areas and strategies for change'.