Brief Depression Psychoeducation and Depression-Related Beliefs Among Chinese Young Adults: The Roles of Self-Perceived Knowledge and Message Framing

Brief psychoeducational materials are widely used in public-facing mental health promotion, but their effects may depend on who receives them and how they are worded. This study examined whether brief depression psychoeducation was associated with two depression-related beliefs—fatalism and recovery expectancy—and whether these associations depended on self-perceived depression knowledge and message framing. Chinese young adults aged 18–30 years were recruited online and assigned to one of four conditions: No-text control, Neutral text, Fog-framed text, or Shackles-framed text (total N = 868). Participants completed an information-choice task, an 8-item coping-action endorsement measure, and belief measures. Primary analyses compared Any-text versus No-text using robust linear models with age, gender, and work status as covariates. Text-only analyses compared Neutral, Fog, and Shackles conditions. The association between Any-text exposure and both belief outcomes depended on self-perceived knowledge. Relative to No-text, Any-text was associated with lower fatalism and higher recovery expectancy primarily among participants with higher perceived knowledge, whereas corresponding differences at lower perceived knowledge were small and non-significant. Within the text conditions, metaphor did not provide a general advantage over literal wording. Instead, Fog framing selectively altered how perceived knowledge related to recovery expectancy relative to Neutral wording, whereas other framing contrasts were not consistently significant. The two more applied indicators were less sensitive in a single exposure: coping-action endorsement showed no significant overall text effect or text-by-knowledge interaction, and information choice showed only limited inferential evidence. Overall, the findings suggest that brief depression psychoeducation does not operate uniformly across recipients. Its association with key depression-related beliefs depends in part on self-perceived knowledge, and metaphorical framing should be treated as a selective wording feature rather than a universal enhancement.