title: Evaluation of an Online Campaign for Promoting Help-Seeking Attitudes for Depression Using a Facebook Advertisement: An Online Randomized Controlled Experiment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A 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.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The 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.
  
  
  METHODS
  Potential 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.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 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).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The 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.
authors.affiliation: Journalism and Media Studies Centre The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China (Hong Kong).
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hui
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Work and Social Administration The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China (Hong Kong).
authors.forename: Paul Wai-Ching
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: Journalism and Media Studies Centre The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China (Hong Kong).
authors.forename: King-Wa
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8157-5276
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Fu
keywords: depression; help-seeking; randomized controlled experiment