范雅婷

Based on the 2019 GBD, there are approximately 280 million people worldwide who suffer from depression, and the number of people suffering from depression is increasing every year according to the Health Insurance Agency, indicating that depression will be an important issue in the future. It is quite important to understand how patients with depression deal with information, as patients' understanding of information will influence the way they treat depression, and misunderstanding of information will lead to information avoidance, which may lead to the neglect of useful information for patients. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the information behavior, information avoidance behavior, and avoidance of patients with depression, especially the information avoidance behaviors and reasons and the circumstances under which information avoidance occurs.
In this study, we found that people with depression would utilize the Internet, medical professionals, and physical books as their primary information channels to find information about medications, illnesses, and diets. People with depression will have the following symptoms:
1. Refuse to receive information about treatment
2. Choose to avoid information that should regulate their lives
3. Avoid watching related programs
4. Avoid browsing or blocking internet users from sharing information about depression and other information avoidance.
The reasons for avoidance are mainly due to the negative emotions generated by the information.

Research recommendations
Practical recommendations: It is recommended that patients with depression should share less about their illness in the community to prevent other patients from having depressive episodes; local rehabilitation associations and psychological societies should be encouraged to cooperate with school counseling units at all levels to conduct seminars and presentations on depression so that patients who cannot be diagnosed can seek help and answers in a proper manner and people who are interested in depression issues can gain positive understanding through the sharing of patients and the teaching of professional lecturers. The library can provide e-books on depression and anxiety reduction for readers who are unable to borrow physical books due to depression attacks.

Suggestions for follow-up research:
Further research on avoidance behavior in patients with depression may include other aspects, such as whether there are different avoidance behaviors among different age groups or gender of patients. In the future, we can also add psychiatrists and counselors as interviewees to conduct medical professionals' views on the avoidance behavior of patients with depression and ways to improve it. Patients with depression are slightly different from other disorders which means that they are less willing to share their experiences with others. Therefore, if the researchers can have a certain degree of understanding of the respondents' feelings, it will reduce the possibility of their refusal to participate in the study. It is recommended that if a researcher wants to conduct research on this topic, he or she should consult with a counselor or psychologist to a certain extent before doing so.
In the future, if there are researchers who want to take this topic as a research theme, they can collaborate with relevant units to recruit research subjects, which may be more attractive than recruiting individuals.
In the future, we can increase the number of research topics that focus on the information needs of depression patients to understand the information needs of the depression community in order to improve the services provided by related units, such as school counseling offices, medical libraries, and medical institutions; and increase the research on the stigma and stereotypes of depression.
If we can study in greater detail on how depression is stigmatized and stereotyped in society, the first step would be to ask the media to improve the words used in their reports, and the second step would be to give the government and counseling units the goal of improving the way people treat depression.