Stigma in health professionals towards people with mental illness: An integrative review (original) (raw)

Stigma as Related to Mental Disorders

Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2008

Individuals with mental illness receive harsh stigmatization, resulting in decreased life opportunities and a loss of independent functioning over and above the impairments related to mental disorders themselves. We begin our review with a multidisciplinary discussion of mechanisms underlying the strong propensity to devalue individuals displaying both deviant behavior and the label of mental illness. Featured is the high potential for internalization of negative perceptions on the part of those with mental disorders—i.e., self-stigmatization. We next focus on several issues of conceptual and practical relevance: (a) stigma against less severe forms of mental disorder; (b) the role of perceptions of dangerousness related to mental illness; (c) reconciliation of behavioral research with investigations of explicit and implicit attitudes; (d) evolutionary models and their testability; (e) attributional accounts of the causes of mental illness, especially to personal control versus biog...

Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness

World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 2002

Table 1 Comparing and contrasting the definitions of public stigma and self-stigma Public stigma Stereotype Negative belief about a group (e.g., dangerousness, incompetence, character weakness) Prejudice Agreement with belief and/or negative emotional reaction (e.g., anger, fear) Discrimination Behavior response to prejudice (e.g., avoidance, withhold employment and housing opportunities, withhold help) Self-stigma Stereotype Negative belief about the self (e.g., character weakness, incompetence) Prejudice Agreement with belief, negative emotional reaction (e.g., low self-esteem, low self-efficacy)

Constructs and concepts comprising the stigma of mental illness

Psychology, Society, & Education

People with mental illness frequently confront public stigma and may experience self-stigma. This review discusses the concepts of mental illness stigma and its consequences for those with mental illness. After a conceptual overview of stigma prominent consequences pertaining to public stigma (i.e., employment, health care quality) and self-stigma (i.e., self-confidence, quality of life, "why try" effect) are reviewed. We discuss the three main public stigma change strategies -protest, education, and contact -as well as current selfstigma change strategies (e.g., psychoeducation, cognitive-behavioral therapy). We conclude by noting that anti-stigma initiatives with more tailored content for specific groups (e.g., police officers vs. general public) may diminish the negative consequences of mental illness stigma by providing more concrete ways to help stigmatized people.

Explicit and implicit stigma against individuals with mental illness

Australian Psychologist, 2007

Stigma against mental illness has devastating consequences for individuals with mental illness and their families. Empirical findings and qualitative evidence indicate that stigma against mental illness remains rampant in many nations and cultures, constituting a significant barrier to successful treatment, reducing key life opportunities, and predicting poor outcomes over and above the effects of mental illness per se. In this article, we define stigma, examine relevant theoretical perspectives, summarize evidence regarding