Abstract:
Background: Depression in healthy persons without cardiac disease has been associated with
the development of coronary artery disease and cardiovascular disease also risk factor for
development of depression. This has devastating effect the patient’s quality of live, illness
progression, morbidity and mortality. Despite this fact help seeking behavior of cardiovascular
patients with depression has not been addressed in Ethiopia.
Objective: To assess the help-seeking behaviors of adult cardiovascular patients with depression
for their depressive disorders in Jimma university teaching hospital.
Method: This was Institution based cross sectional study conducted October to December in
2014. The study was conducted on 353 cardiovascular patients who attended the cardiac clinic
at Jimma University Teaching Hospital. Depression was assessed using patient health
questionnaire version nine(PHQ-9)which is validated in Ethiopia, Help seeking behavior using
actual help seeking questionnaire and social support using oslow social support - 3 item scale.
Result: From the total of 339 participants, 57.5% (n=195) of them fulfill the case definition of
depression and 12.1 %( n=41) of participant reported idea of hurting themselves. Out of patients
who fulfill case definition of depression, only 33.3% sought help for their depression. From those
participants who sought help 88.6% sought help from one or more of informal help source.
Traditional healers, ministers and husband/wife were most frequently visited help source.
Occupation (odds of = 4.24, 95% confidence interval (CI) =1.31, 13.78), education level (AOR
7.6,CI=2.13,27.11), presence of history of mental illness in the family (AOR 7.33, CI=2.72,
19.80), ideal of hearting themselves, knowing availability of the psychiatric service in this
hospital and having previous seeking help were significantly associated with help seeking.
Conclusion and recommendation: the number of patients not seeking help for depression is
high. There for scaling up mental health service in tertiary hospitals through multidisciplinary
approach should be given high priority
