Digital storytelling helps encourage Latinas to pursue treatment for depression & anxiety

In the videos, a Latina nurse-therapist named Veronica provides basic information about depression and anxiety, therapeutic exercises and how to seek help.

UCLA Nursing video

UCLA Nursing professor, MarySue Heilemann, has found that culturally tailored multimedia directed toward Latina women may be an effective method to encourage these women to seek help for depression and anxiety. Heilemann collaborated with a Latino screenwriter-director to create short videos that tell the story of a fictional Latina woman and her journey managing symptoms of depression and anxiety. Twenty-eight Latina women participated in the pilot study. Within one week after seeing the story-based videos, nearly 40 percent of them took action to get help and 82 percent discussed the content with others.  Latinos receive less mental health care than whites even though they more commonly report symptoms of depression and anxiety. This research shows that developing digital storytelling as a method to destigmatize treatment for mental disorders, may hold promise as a future intervention.

Read more at UCLA Newsroom