Mental Illness and Stigma: Beyond the Diagnosis (original) (raw)
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Mental health-related stigma in health care and mental health-care settings
The Lancet Psychiatry, 2014
This Review considers the evidence for mental-health-related stigma in health-care and mental-health-care settings. Do mental-health-care and other health-care professionals stigmatise people using their services? If so, what are the eff ects on quality of mental and physical health care? How can stigma and discrimination in the context of health care be reduced? We show that the contact mental-health-care professionals have with people with mental illness is associated with positive attitudes about civil rights, but does not reduce stigma as does social contact such as with friends or family members with mental illness. Some evidence suggests educational interventions are eff ective in decreasing stigma especially for general health-care professionals with little or no formal mental health training. Intervention studies are needed to underpin policy; for instance, to decrease disparity in mortality associated with poor access to physical health care for people with mental illness compared with people without mental illness.
Stigma of Mental Illness-1: Clinical reflections
Mens Sana Monographs, 2012
Although the quality and effectiveness of mental health treatments and services have improved greatly over the past 50 years, therapeutic revolutions in psychiatry have not yet been able to reduce stigma. Stigma is a risk factor leading to negative mental health outcomes. It is responsible for treatment seeking delays and reduces the likelihood that a mentally ill patient will receive adequate care. It is evident that delay due to stigma can have devastating consequences. This review will discuss the causes and consequences of stigma related to mental illness.
Stigma, discrimination and mental illness
Journal of Mental Health, 2003
In line with the general remit of the journal to produce useful high quality papers on issues of importance to users of mental health services, this issue of the Journal of Mental Health is devoted to stigma, discrimination and mental illness. As many of us who work in the mental health field know, individuals with mental illness experience the double-edged sword of managing both their illness and the negative attitudes and behaviours from the community. It has an effect on all aspects of their lives. There is evidence of less favourable social interactions, discrimination in work opportunities and housing as well as their access to health care. Some of this discrimination results from a genuine misunderstanding of the nature of mental ill health but in other cases, the stereotype of particularly severe mental illness has been so absorbed and framed in all types of media that it seems almost impossible to dispel these myths in the general public. This issue is devoted to research that may help in this endeavour.
Stigma of Mental Illness-2: Non-compliance and Intervention
Mens Sana Monographs, 2012
The consequences of stigma are preventable. We argue that individual attention should be provided to patients when dealing with stigma. Also, in order to deal with the impact of stigma on an individual basis, it needs to be assessed during routine clinical examinations, quantified and followed up to observe whether or not treatment can reduce its impact. A patient-centric anti-stigma programme that delivers the above is urgently needed. To this end, this review explores the experiences, treatment barriers and consequences due to stigma. We also offer putative solutions to this problem.
Stigma: the feelings and experiences of 46 people with mental illness: Qualitative study
The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2004
Background Stigma defines people in terms of some distinguishing characteristic and devalues them as a consequence. Aims To describe the relationship of stigma with mental illness, psychiatric diagnosis, treatment and its consequences of stigma for the individual. Method Narrative interviews were conducted by trained users of the local mental health services; 46 patients were recruited from community and day mental health services in North London. Results Stigma was a pervasive concern to almost all participants. People with psychosis or drug dependence were most likely to report feelings and experiences of stigma and were most affected by them. Those with depression, anxiety and personality disorders were more affected by patronising attitudes and feelings of stigma even if they had not experienced any overt discrimination. However, experiences were not universally negative. Conclusions Stigma may influence how a psychiatric diagnosis is accepted, whether treatment will be adhered ...
Community Mental Health Journal, 2018
Despite increasing mental health promotion and advocacy, stigma persists and poses a significant threat to the healthy functioning at the macro and micro-sociological levels. Stigma is gradually evolving with the incorporation of broader social contexts at the micro and macro levels in which individuals, institutions and larger cultural constructs shape and influence the perception of what is different and therefore stigmatized. This theoretical paper based on literature underscores how mental health stigma discourages individuals from getting proper mental health treatment. The interface of mental illness, stigma, and mental health treatment has ethical and potentially moral implications.
Stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness: a critical appraisal
Epidemiologia e psichiatria sociale, 2008
This editorial gives an overview of the different roots and forms of discrimination and stigmatisation towards people with mental illness. It explains the differences between stereotype, prejudice and discrimination. It further highlights some research foci of stigma research in the last decade. The emphasis was mostly on investigating the attitudes of the general population, but barely addressed other groups that have probably more intensive and more crucial contact with people with mental illness. Furthermore, only very few intervention programs were evaluated. This editorial concludes that other groups than the general population, e.g., mental health professionals, should be investigated about their attitudes to people with mental illness. Moreover, intervention campaigns should be additionally evaluated after a given period as it is not well known whether effects of interventions are long-lasting. It might be that anti-stigma campaigns, as every public health campaign, must be repeated if sustainability is the goal. Furthermore, the message must be carefully chosen. One option is to replace the "traditional" messages by focussing, e.g., on symptoms of mental illness, for instance anxiety, affective symptoms or suicidal ideations. Finally, a plea for more stigma-related research is given as research in stigma-related issues is also stigmatised.
International journal of environmental research and public health, 2018
Recent reviews on the evidence base for mental health related stigma reduction show that under certain conditions interpersonal contact is effective in promoting more positive attitudes, reduced desire for social distance, and increased stigma related knowledge (knowledge which disconfirms beliefs based on stereotypes). Short-term interventions may have effects that are attenuated over time; longer term programmes may support sustained improvements, but research following up long-term interventions is scarce. However, the effectiveness of these interventions should not obscure the nature of stigma as a social problem. In this article we describe stigma as a 'wicked problem' to highlight some implications for intervening against stigma and evaluating these efforts. These include the risks of unintended consequences and the need to continually reformulate the concept of stigma, to ensure that tackling stigma at the structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal levels become par...