bibliotherapy treatment for children with depression: a comparison of male and female students in public secondary schools in ekiti state, nigeria.

Introduction: the concept of depression among secondary students encompasses a cluster of emotional, somatic, and cognitive health issues that emerge in adolescence and interfere with well-being and functioning without support. early detection and treatment are critical during this formative period. therefore, this study compared outcomes following bibliotherapy treatment with 199 students in ekiti state, nigeria, public secondary schools. the general objective of this study was to determine the extent to which gender moderates bibliotherapy treatment of depression among public secondary school students in ekiti state, nigeria. specifically, we aimed to investigate the effect of bibliotherapy (treatment) and gender on depression scores. methods: the multi-stage sampling procedure was used, and ekiti state was stratified into three senatorial districts (ekiti central, ekiti south, and ekiti north). one local government area (lga) with the highest number of secondary schools was chosen from each stratum, and one secondary school with a large population of students was purposively selected from each lga. the senior secondary school (sss) class 1 students in the selected schools were stratified and screened using the patient health questionner-2 (phq-2) (r꞊0.81), and those who scored 3, optimal cut point and above were selected. the instrument used was the patient health questionnaire-9 (phq-9) modified for adolescents (phq-a) (r꞊0.84). results: the participants were 17.00±12.00 years; 49.2% were male, while 50.8% were female. there was a significant effect of treatment and gender on depression (f(1,194)=21.73, p(0.00)˂0.05, η²=0.013) with female (x̅=15.84) and male (x̅=16.23). conclusion: the study concludes that there was a significant effect of gender on depression among students in public secondary schools in ekiti state, nigeria. the discussion focuses on a possible explanation of these results.