Public acceptance of restrictions on mentally ill people (original) (raw)
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Attitudes of the German public to restrictions on persons with mental illness in 1993 and 2011
Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 2014
Aims. In recent years, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Mental Health Declaration for Europe and other initiatives laid the ground for improving the rights of persons with mental illness. This study aims to explore to what extent these achievements are reflected in changes of public attitudes towards restrictions on mentally ill people. Methods. Data from two population surveys that have been conducted in the 'new' States of Germany in 1993 and 2011 are compared with each other. Results. The proportion of respondents accepting compulsory admission of mentally ill persons to a psychiatric hospital remained unchanged in general, but the proportion opposing compulsory admission on grounds not sanctioned by law declined. In contrast, more respondents were opposed to permanently revoking the driver's license and fewer supported abortion and (voluntary) sterilisation in 2011. Concerning the right to vote and compulsory sterilisation...
Public attitude toward the mentally ill as a function of prior personal experience
Social Psychiatry, 1978
A survey of public attitude was conducted to assess the relationship between the degree of past exposure to the mentally ill and expressed levels of social rejection. Attitudes held toward the mentally ill were found not to be uni-dirnensional but rather were comprised of two principle factors: a) rejection in social relationships and b) rejection in situations requiring social responsibility. High, Moderate, and Low groups in level of direct experience with the mentally ill, as measured on a Guttman Scale of personal experience, differed significantly in their degree of "social rejection" of the mentally ill. The more extensive the personal experience with individuals who required psychiatric hospital care, the more favorable the response in accepting them in social activities and in trusting them in situations of social responsibility. Implications of the research findings, in regard to public education efforts and in regard to community placement of ex-patients, are considered.
Public attitudes towards the mentally ill: A cross-cultural study between Bali and Tokyo
Psychiatry and …, 2000
The present study investigates the differences in public attitudes towards the mentally ill in Bali (Indonesia) and Tokyo (Japan), the former being a non-industrialized society and the latter an industrialized society in Asia. Seventy-seven residents of Bali and 66 residents from Tokyo were examined by a devaluation-discrimination measure and a self-assessment questionnaire to gauge their reactions to five imaginary case study vignettes consisting of three cases of schizophrenia, one case of a depressive episode, and one case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Balinese respondents had significantly lower devaluation-discrimination measure scores, indicating a more favorable global attitude towards persons with a history of psychiatric treatment than did respondents in Tokyo. However, the extent to which people were prejudicial against mental patients in the two societies varied with the kinds of mental disorders, with Balinese having a more positive attitude to schizophrenics but more negative to depressive and obsessivecompulsive patients.
BMC Psychiatry, 2011
Background: Research has identified stigmatization as a major threat to successful treatment of individuals with mental illness. As a consequence several anti-stigma campaigns have been carried out. The results have been discouraging and the field suffers from lack of evidence about interventions that work. There are few reports on psychometric data for instruments used to assess stigma, which thus complicates research efforts. The aim of the present study was to investigate test-retest reliability of the Swedish versions of the questionnaires: FABI and "Changing Minds" and to examine the internal consistency of the two instruments.
Attitudes towards psychiatric treatment and people with mental illness: changes over two decades
British Journal of Psychiatry, 2013
BackgroundOver the past decades, psychiatry, as a science and a clinical discipline, has witnessed profound changes.AimsTo examine whether these changes are reflected in changes in the public's conceptualisation of mental disorders, the acceptance of mental health treatment and attitudes towards people with mental illness.MethodIn 1990 and 2011, population surveys were conducted in Germany on public attitudes about schizophrenia, depression and alcohol dependence.ResultsAlthough the public has become more inclined to endorse a biological causation of schizophrenia, the opposite trend was observed with the other two disorders. The public's readiness to recommend help-seeking from mental health professionals and using psychotherapy and psychotropic medication has increased considerably. Attitudes towards people with schizophrenia worsened, whereas for depression and alcohol dependence no or inconsistent changes were found.ConclusionsThe growing divide between attitudes towards...
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 2007
Structural discrimination against psychiatric patients may occur as a result of distribution of resources in the health system. We examine whether familiarity with mental illness, which reduces discrimination on the individual level, also moderates the approval of structural discrimination in health care funding. We conducted a representative survey of the German population (N ϭ 5025) in 2001 using a fully structured personal interview, including a measure of preferences for the allocation of health resources and an assessment of familiarity with mental illness. The approval of structural discrimination was inversely related to the individual's familiarity with mental illness in depression and, to a lesser extent, in schizophrenia. This relationship was absent for alcoholism and generally weak for contacts to mentally ill persons outside one's own family. Strategies successful in reducing individual discrimination are thus not necessarily suitable for combating structural discrimination and need to be tailored to their specific target.
Are Popular Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill Changing?
American Journal of Psychiatry, 1969
The authors compared the current attitude toward the mentally ill in a rural Canadian town with findings from a similar town in 1951. While noting a possible trend toward greater knowledge of mental illness and sophistication about it, they caution that attitudes expressed during an interview may not reflect actual behavior toward the mentally ill.
Public attitude towards restrictions on persons with mental illness in greater Hanoi area, Vietnam
The International journal of social psychiatry, 2018
In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the need to protect human rights in psychiatry. Within the last years, considerable effort has been made to reduce restrictive measures in mental health settings. Reducing restrictive measures within mental health care has also moved increasingly into the focus of public debate. This study aims, for the first time in a Southeast Asian sample, to explore whether socio-demographic factors affect public attitudes toward restrictions on mentally ill people in Hanoi, Vietnam. A general population-based survey (self-report questionnaire) was carried out in 2013 in the greater Hanoi area. The survey sample ( N = 813) was recruited according to the latest published census (2009) and micro-census (2013) in Vietnam and Hanoi with regard to the socio-demographic factors gender, age, urbanity, household size and marital status. Multinomial logistic regressions for odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated to examine the infl...
Psychiatry research, 2018
Despite the improving mental health literacy of the public over recent years, people's attitudes towards people with the diagnosis of mental illness do not appeared to have changed. Long-term studies are scarce and mainly limited to Northwestern Europe. Given that no study has ever been carried out in Hungary, the present study examined attitudinal trends towards mentally ill people in the country, and evaluated its determinants using one item of the Social Distance Scale to assess social rejection towards others. National representative surveys of Hungarian adults were conducted in 2001, 2003, 2007 and 2015 (n = 7605). By means of interview and a self-administered questionnaire, socio-demographic information, preferences for social distance, and familiarity with mental illnesses were assessed. Trend analysis demonstrated that no meaningful change had occurred in the desire for social distance over a period of 15 years. Being a woman, having low education level, and lower famili...
Community attitudes towards the mentally ill in Serbia
Engrami
Introduction. Integration of the mentally ill into the community is one of the essential objectives of social rehabilitation. Deinstitutionalization is one of the central points of contemporary mental health reforms across the world. The acceptance of people with mental health problems in the general population is an important factor in determining the success of implementing deinstitutionalization strategies. Furthermore, medical students during their education attain knowledge about mental health problems as standard part of their curriculum. Quantifying the outlook towards people with mental health problems in future doctors is an important determinant of prospective community-based care. Aim. Assessment of community attitudes towards the mentally ill in a repre